The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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Overview and Connections
The closer we get to Advent, the more we are going to be asked to meditate on the common and universal experience of death as well as the possibility of resurrection.
2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
The lectionary focus on the two brothers today is because they eloquently expressed a belief in bodily resurrection. In the story preceding this one, a man named Eleazar refuses to eat food that is unclean. Today’s story continues that example by showing that even women and children are also willing to die for their faith. Part of what gives them strength to do this is that they believe in something beyond this life.
5:1 – 7:42 cover the arrival of Antiochus Epiphanes and his attempted imposition of Hellenism on the Jews. Anitochus IV was a Greek king who ruled from 175-164BC. He carried the title Epiphanes, which means god manifest or glorious or illustrious. He was well known for persecuting the Jews by denying them the right to worship as Jews, and this triggered the Maccabean revolt, which lasted from 167-160BC. The Maccabees engaged in guerrilla warfare tactics that were surprisingly successful against the large Greek army. They succeeded in ending the persecution and restoring religious liberty.
V6 is a direct quote from the “Song of Moses” found in Deuteronomy 32. The son quotes his sacred scriptures, and, in v8, he responds in Hebrew, which was a form of cultural resistance.
The genre of this passage is a type of martyrdom literature, and its purpose was to encourage those undergoing persecution to remain steadfast in their faith.
How does your hope in resurrection inspire your daily actions?
2 Thessalonians 2:16—3:5
This reading begins with Paul speaking of “everlasting encouragement.” This phrase in the Greek is literally “having given us comfort,” which is the Greek word paraklesin. John’s gospel will use this word to refer to the Holy Spirit.
In Luke 9:51, Jesus steadfastly set his face towards Jerusalem. This is the same word as strengthen in v17. It means, literally, to turn resolutely to a certain direction.
Paul prays for an interior disposition (comfort, encouragement) as well as the external strength needed to live out that interior disposition.
Paul has offered up his prayer for the community, and now, in 3:1, he asks them to pray for him in his work. He asks for prayer, not for his own needs, but that he might continue to preach the gospel. He envisions that gospel “speeding along,” going throughout the world unimpeded.
In v2, he refers to “evil men.” In the Jewish context, this word evil aligns with the Hebrew understanding of evil as anything that opposes God’s will and righteousness. This is not meant to be a theological statement about the dignity of human beings. Paul is not saying that we are inherently wicked or evil.
Paul was influenced by both Jewish and Hellenistic thought, and he used this word “wicked” or “evil” to describe the pervasive nature of sin and the spiritual battle between good and evil. This is the idea of original sin that pervades creation. Opposing God’s will comes from not having faith, Paul says.
Not everyone has faith, but God is always faithful. God gives us strength and guards us against doing things that oppose God’s will. We don’t always listen to God, but the help is there!
Also, notice in v3 that Paul says not everyone has faith, and some will impede the gospel with their disbelief. What do you do for those people? Pray for them and look to God for protection as you go about spreading the gospel anyway.
Paul’s passage reminds us that, in an uncertain world, we find our certainty in God. His love is eternal, his Word is powerful, his faithfulness is unshakeable, and his guidance is available. When we anchor ourselves in these truths, we can face any storm with confidence.
How does your faith help anchor you in the storms?
Luke 20:27-38
I think this reading reminds us that we are indeed on a journey with Jesus, and that journey culminates, not in Jerusalem as an earthly city, but Jerusalem as the long-awaited heavenly city where all is set right, the fulfillment of the mysteries we celebrate in part here on earth.
This is the only appearance of the Sadducees in Luke’s gospel (although they appear several times in Acts). Sadducees opposed the Pharisees as being too liberal, and they accepted only the Torah and no other sacred writings or oral tradition. Sadducees were the fundamentalists of the day. When you think of them, think doctrinal conservatism and liturgical narrowness.
There are many examples in Luke where people test Jesus to see which side of a debate he’s on. This passage is one of them – are you on the side of believing only the written Torah? Or do you side with those who believe in more than that?
Deuteronomy 25:5-10 laid out requirements for a widow who had no children. If her husband had brothers, one of the brothers was legally obligated to marry her and give her a child. In this way, she would be taken care of.
The underlying driver for this law was the disastrous consequences for a man dying without children: it would ultimately bring shame to the family. Not only that, but inheritances might become dubious.
In v29, the Sadducees use this law with a theoretical example. They are creating a test case to probe the boundaries of reasonableness. They imagine seven brothers living out the law from Deuteronomy, where each one dies without giving the widow any children.
Their purpose for the case is to show the absurdity of any belief in a resurrection, because, as they inquire in v33, it’s not clear who the woman would “belong to” at such a resurrection. And you can imagine, as they look at Jesus while posing this question, it’s as if they are saying, “Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?!” They were feeling pretty proud of themselves, even as the whole purpose of the question was to start an argument.
But in v34, Jesus, as he often does, views it differently. He tells them that the coming age won’t be like this age. Things are different in the future kingdom. When Matthew recounts this story, Jesus has an even stronger answer than here in Luke. “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)
The Sadducees’ worldview is that marriage is for the purpose of producing children. Human propagation is necessary lest our race die out. They assume this is true of the afterlife as well.
Jesus says no, things are different. Propagation will no longer be necessary because we will be immortal – we won’t die out. So the dead will be resurrected, and they won’t need to marry and have children because they won’t die.
In v36, Jesus compares the resurrected to angels, but the Sadducees didn’t believe in angels either. So in v37, he turns to evidence from the Torah. He observes the verb tense in Exodus 3:6, where God says, “I am,” not “I was.” Jesus interprets this to imply that the patriarchs somehow still live. This might seem a little logically loose to us, but in v39, the Sadducees commend Jesus for such a response.
The Sadducees understood the next life, if there was one, could only be a continuation of the present one. Jesus invites them into a much broader vision of God doing something radically different. How are you influenced by the Sadducees’ thinking that heaven only continues what we know here? How might God be inviting you into a different understanding?
This story, paired with the Maccabees reading, asks us to think about death. Do we truly believe in resurrection? Do our lives reflect that?
There is a word I recently discovered: prolepsis. To live proleptically is to believe in a future event so deeply that one lives as though it has already happened. St. Augustine said that we are an Easter people, meaning that we believe in the resurrection of the dead. Do we really believe that? And do we proleptically live that out?