Luke 21:5-19 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for…
Luke 20:27-38 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the…
Pharisees and tax collectors get a lot of attention in our Gospel texts, and after generations of interpretation and familiarity with the stories they appear in, many of us here have likely inherited a caricature of both: the pharisee as an arrogant, self-righteous, inflexible conservative, who Jesus seems to constantly criticize and argue with; and the tax collector, someone of more simple stock, an ordinary man, perhaps, dubiously employed, for sure, but cruelly excluded and peripheralized by his own people.…
Jeremiah 31:27-34 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes,and the…
