BCP Daily Office Lectionary for Friday, Dec. 3, 2004
Source: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/index.htm
Morning Psalm(s): AM Psalm 16, 17 [PCUSA: 102]
Evening Psalm(s): PM Psalm 22 [PCUSA: 130]
Old Testament: Isa. 3:8-15 [PCUSA: Isaiah 3:1-4:1]
Epistle: 1 Thess. 4:1-12
Gospel: Luke 20:41-21:4
Presbyterian Readings with Biblical Text for the Current Day:
http://www.pcusa.org/cgi-bin/lectiond.cgi
Judgment turns ironic in the opening stanza of Isaiah chapter three: The LORD is removing all the usual leaders, “warrior and soldier,/judge and prophet,/diviner and elder,/captain of fifty/and dignitary . . .” (Isa. 3:2-3). They are to be replace by children: “And I will make boys their princes,/and babes shall rule over them” (v. 4). Why? “For Jerusalem has stumbled/and Judah has fallen,/because their speech and their deeds are against the LORD,/defying his glorious presence” (v. 8). Woes are pronounced on those who “proclaim their sin like Sodom” (v. 9), and “the guilty” (v. 11). “O my people,” says the prophet,”your leaders mislead you,/and confuse the course of your paths” (v. 12). He pronounces judgment on the elders and princes:
It is you who have devoured the vineyard;
the spoil of the poor is in your houses. (v. 14)
He thus anticipates the Daily Office Reading for next Sunday (Isa. 5:1-7, the Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard).
Paul turns to ethical admonition, calling upon the Thessalonian believers to continue living “to please God” (1 Thess. 4:1) according to Paul’s instructions (v. 2). “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (vv. 3-5. “For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness” (v. 7). Paul urges them “to love one another” (v. 9), as they do, but “to do so more and more” (v. 10). And he urges them “to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with our hands . . . so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one” (vv. 11-12). This is good advice in any setting, but perhaps especially so in the face of opposition such as Paul and others had faced at Thessalonica.
Luke presents three short accounts: the Question about David’s Son (Lk. 20:41-44; Mk. 12:35-37a; and the fuller version, Mt. 22:41-46), a Denouncing of the Scribes (Lk. 20:45-47; Mk. 12:37-40), and Jesus comment on the Widow’s Offering (Lk. 21:1-4; Mk. 12:41-44). In the first, based on Psalm 110:1, Jesus asks how the Messiah, “my Lord” can be David’s son, since David, in authoring the Psalm, calls him “Lord.” In Mark and Luke, the question stands unanswered; Matthew, making things clear, says “And no one was able to answer him a word” (Mt. 22:46). In the second account, Jesus denounces the scribes for ostentatious behavior (Lk. 20:46, 47) and oppression of widows, “They devour widows’ houses” (v. 46). In contrast, it is a widow who earns Jesus’ praise because her gift of “two small copper coins” (lepta, each worth normally about one eighth of a cent, Lk. 21:2) was “all she had to live on” (v. 4). She puts to shame those who “contributed out of their abundance” (v. 4), probably including the scribes who “for the sake of appearance say long prayers” (20:47).
Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.