The Passages<\/p>\n
[Rather than preaching from one of the four passages (Revised Standard Version) assigned for today, this Sunday\u2019s homily attempts to enter all of them and note how they anchor us more deeply in the Lord\u2019s Life.\u00a0 Due to volume, the passages are not printed out, but are described in the homily.]<\/p>\n
\u201cThe LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.\u00a0 Come now and look upon the works of the LORD, what awesome things he has done on earth\u2026Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.\u201d [Psalm 46.8, 9, 11]<\/p>\n
In the Name of Christ + Jesus Our Lord<\/p>\n
Every Sunday that we step into the Church\u2019s Liturgy, there is a hidden, yet huge, reality which anchors our lives in those moments \u2013 we are coming in as the Lord\u2019s daughters and sons!\u00a0 We may be casual about such reality, but it exists.\u00a0 We are the Lord\u2019s people \u2013 rescued from the world\u2019s life by the Son through his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension; created by the Father to be immersed in his Life; and made holy by the Spirit through the Life he breathes into our lives!<\/p>\n
This reality, though, gets casual and is often hidden because the world\u2019s life keeps swirling around us.\u00a0 We are birthed so fully into it that its confusion and chaos keeps asserting itself from infancy to death.\u00a0 It is that life which causes the Trinity\u2019s Life to become assumed, ignored and obscured. The four passages today push back against the world\u2019s life, resetting our lives firmly in the Life streaming from the Father, Son and Spirit, the only Life which pushes through death into eternity!<\/p>\n
We first look at the psalm appointed for this day, Psalm 17.1-9, because its realities provide us a context to better understand the passages from Job, the apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The nine verses of Psalm 17 reflect well the extreme strains experienced by the Lord\u2019s people today as well as the extreme difficulties of Job\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
The verses plead with the Lord to recognize their innocence and lack of lying.\u00a0 The only individual capable of being that way is the Son of God and the Son of man.\u00a0 In a shadowy way the verses point to him because he is \u201cVindication\u201d for Job and us.\u00a0 He keeps us focused on the Father\u2019s ways.\u00a0 He steers us through the impurities and offenses of the world\u2019s life.\u00a0 He enables us to pay close attention to the speaking of the Father and the Spirit.<\/p>\n
The agony of this vindication playing out in our lives comes out vividly in the passage from Job 19.\u00a0 The chapter responds to Bildad\u2019s second conversation in chapter 18.\u00a0 Job is recognizing that he is completely isolated, that his friends do not understand his circumstances.\u00a0 Job knows he may have spoken incorrectly, but he has not intended to offend God or other human beings.\u00a0 Just before the verses of today\u2019s passage, Job stresses how solitary his life is.\u00a0 He wishes that his words were written so he can be vindicated.\u00a0 Through his \u201cVindicator\u201d (\u201cRedeemer\u201d), Job hopes to obtain an audience with God himself.\u00a0 In his desperate loneliness, rejected by his friends, stripped of heirs, attacked by God and uncertain of his future, Job\u2019s trust expresses the certainty that, after his death, his understandings will be fulfilled!<\/p>\n
Job\u2019s difficulties and the strains of living in the world\u2019s life as the Lord\u2019s baptized people is worked out in the day\u2019s second reading from 2 Thessalonians 2.\u00a0 This parish had been started by the apostle Paul.\u00a0 He wrote them two letters.\u00a0 They were experiencing sharp opposition from the synagogue because they were regarded as a heretical sect.\u00a0 They were also stirred within the parish by the expectations of Jesus\u2019 second coming as well as a vivid sense of the Spirit\u2019s presence and power.\u00a0 This tension created the erroneous opinion that the Lord\u2019s Day (his Second Coming) had already occurred.<\/p>\n
Paul wrote his two letters to encourage the parish in these difficult circumstances as well as to address the theological and practical consequences of the faulty teachings.\u00a0 He reminds his readers of the apostolic tradition concerning the Lord\u2019s Day.\u00a0 He also startles them and us with the reminder that the rebellion against the LORD God must take place first and then the \u201cman of lawlessness\u201d will be revealed before the Lord\u2019s Second (and Final) Coming. \u00a0Paul also rebukes those individuals who are teaching that our rescue as the Lord\u2019s people means we no longer have to work!\u00a0 He exemplifies his work among them, commenting that \u201cIf anyone does not work, that person will not eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
In dealing with the strains of being the Lord\u2019s people in today\u2019s world, note the paragraph where Paul describes the \u201cman of lawlessness.\u201d\u00a0 The description fits those people who are fully wrapped in this world\u2019s life.\u00a0 Life is all about them and they are thoroughly caught up with the thousands of the world\u2019s gods.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this wrapping makes them think they are God himself and they come to tragic ends!<\/p>\n
In spite of these strains, Paul is thankful for the people in this parish, commenting on how the Lord has brought them into his Life and through the workings of the Spirit has deepened their understandings of that Life.\u00a0 This Life will guide them through the strains they are experiencing and ultimately bring their lives to completion in it.\u00a0 He encourages them to remain fully rooted in that Life and to hold to the traditions taught them by Paul and others.\u00a0 He commends them to the sustaining work of the Son and the Father who comfort and establish them in all they are and do.<\/p>\n
In the Gospel for today, the strains of being the Lord\u2019s people are erased as his Life rushes to completion in eternity!\u00a0 This passage from Luke shows Jesus distinguishing\u00a0 two ages or kinds of existence.\u00a0 People are part of the world\u2019s life because of their physical births but the Lord\u2019s people are part of the age which surfaces fully in eternity because of their Baptisms into Jesus\u2019 crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.\u00a0 Such people are carried through the deaths triggered by the world\u2019s life, falling asleep in the Life which streams from the Son\u2019s ascension.<\/p>\n
This Lukan passage comes from the early days of Holy Week.\u00a0 Jesus has entered Jerusalem on the Day we currently observe as the \u201cSunday of the Passion.\u201d\u00a0 He has cleansed the temple, pointing to the new Life which will erupt the following Friday and Sunday.\u00a0 The religious authorities, who are increasingly hounding him, are challenging the authority by which he says and does things.\u00a0 He relates the parable of the vineyard, detailing how, as religious authorities, they have mishandled their responsibilities with the Jewish traditions.\u00a0 <\/strong>He also details what is involved when paying taxes to the governing authorities.\u00a0 Then, in today\u2019s Gospel reading, they raise significant questions about the resurrection in eternity.<\/p>\n The passage is the highly familiar one involving seven brothers who end up being married to an individual woman but all of them die before having any children with her.\u00a0 The authorities, familiar with their traditions from Moses, try to confound Jesus by wondering which brother will be the woman\u2019s husband in the resurrection.<\/p>\n Apparently Jesus surprises them with the observation that those who are carried from this age (this life) to the next one (eternal Life) are no longer involved in marriage!\u00a0 That reality no longer exists because such persons are equal to the angels, and are the sons and daughters of God, being heirs of the resurrection!\u00a0 Jesus goes on to reinforce the resurrection reality by referencing Moses and the burning bush, showing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is THE God of the living and not the God of the dead!\u00a0 He comments further that this is the reality in which his people live!<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 teachings and comments impact the scribes so much they acknowledge he has spoken well and they no longer ask him any more questions.\u00a0 And we well know how the end of that Holy Week works out for him and for them!<\/p>\n All four passages run back into the closing passage from Psalm 17.\u00a0 While we, as the Lord\u2019s people, have to make our way through the world\u2019s life, we also live within the holy places of the Lord\u2019s Life.\u00a0 These places, ranging from the Scriptures and including the Sacraments of Baptism, Forgiveness and Supper, expose us to the Lord\u2019s Life, surrounding and sustaining us with its realities. \u00a0Such activity enables us to pay close attention to the Lord\u2019s ways and walk in them.\u00a0 There is less stumbling around in our daily livess along with the growing confidence that the Lord hears us when we call on him.<\/p>\n Exposed to the Lord\u2019s Life on a continual basis, we recognize that our Lord is always showing his marvelous loving-kindness to those who take refuge in him.\u00a0 He steadily protects them from those who harass and torment his people.\u00a0 Having drawn us into his Life he is highly jealous for and proud of us.\u00a0 He is committed to keeping us safe from everything in the world\u2019s life which threatens us with its natural destruction.<\/p>\n Earlier we had noted the strains of living in the world\u2019s life as the Lord\u2019s rescued people.<\/p>\n These strains are huge and often unrelenting; they can run on for days and weeks, even months and years!\u00a0 Because it is impossible to free ourselves from the world\u2019s way of living, we often find ourselves taking the Lord\u2019s Life for granted, walking away from it or, more dangerously, re-working his Life so that it better fits with our natural ways of thinking and doing!<\/p>\n As he works his Life into ours from the holy places, he breaks the hard-wire the world installed at our births and keeps replacing the software which the world is always dangling for us to try so we can get out of these strains on our own!\u00a0 Remember, the world, as smart and attractive as it appears to be, is not capable of dealing with its strains.\u00a0 All it does is point to the things which are wrong, work us into endless frenzies over them and leave us with \u201ctemporary solutions.\u201d \u00a0Such accomplishments only emerge from what we think and do, while continuing to prolong the dead ends in our lives!<\/p>\n The world\u2019s life is always seeking to take control of our lives and to have the last word in everything we think, say and do.\u00a0 Gratefully, the world does not have such control or the last word!\u00a0 It is the LORD God who does!\u00a0 These four holy readings remind us again that the Son, the Father and the Spirit are always stepping fully into the strains of living in the world\u2019s life, rescuing the people trapped by them, and immersing those individuals in the only Life which streams from eternity into eternity!<\/p>\n Now may the peace of the LORD God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus Our Lord<\/p>\n Pr. Carl A. Voges, STS, Columbia, SC Pentecost Twenty-Two | 09.11.2025 | Job 19.23-27a; Ps 17.1-9; 2 Thess 2.1-5, 13-17; Luke 20.27-40 | Carl A. Voges | The Passages [Rather than preaching from one of the four passages (Revised Standard Version) assigned for today, this Sunday\u2019s homily attempts to enter all of them and note how they anchor us more deeply in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,49,17,18,2,727,157,853,173,108,587,110,1798,506,349,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-25580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lukas","category-2-thessalonicher","category-hiob","category-psalmen","category-at","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-carl-a-voges","category-current","category-drittl-s-d-kj","category-engl","category-kapitel-017-chapter-017","category-kapitel-19-chapter-19-hiob","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25586,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25580\/revisions\/25586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25580"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=25580"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=25580"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=25580"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=25580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\ncarl.voges4@icloud.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"