Go West . . .

Death comes to either the soul or the body. The soul cannot die, and yet it can die. It cannot die because its consciousness is never lost. It can die, if it loses God. You see, just as a soul itself is the life of the body, so in the same way God is the life of the soul. As the body dies when the soul that is its life abandons it, in the same way when God abandons the soul, it dies. To make sure, however, that God does not abandoned the soul, it must always have enough faith not to fear death for God’s sake. Then God does not abandon it, and it does not die. — St Augustine

I was walking through downtown Atlanta, Georgia, from a hotel next to the famous Apollo Theater on Peachtree, along Peachtree (but another Peachtree) to the Southeastern Synod’s office on, you guessed it, yet another street called “Peachtree” in some iteration. There are 33 streets in Atlanta that are named Peachtree in some form. It is Atlanta’s way to defend itself against outsiders. I was on my way to present myself to the Synod’s candidacy committee as a candidate for ordination. 

Behind me were 12 years as a man who worked in iron and machinery. Ahead lay, well, I was not sure. I am not totally sure that after 24 years, even I could have explained it to my then 31 years old self. I am today not sure that the 31 year old could explain to me today why it was a good idea and how he got to that moment walking on Peachtree — the other one, not the behind me or the one I was headed to. 

Ahead up on Peachtree, the third one, not the one I was walking on or walking from, waited 16 pastors and laypeople who wanted to know whether I was a good risk to send on this trip to pastor-dom.  What does one say to these people waiting in that room? 

What does one say to those behind, for that matter? What does one say to Ken who looked at me as I announced my departure at GM? “I wish I could leave like you are doing, I’ve wanted to, but they own me here.” He turned and walked to his desk in the corner of our group office. I could tell from his voice and face that he was fighting tears. 

That afternoon on a street in Atlanta, Georgia, I became a friend to Luke 21:14-15. There are some things that are beyond words to explain or prepare, to justify or judge, and no, I had no idea what I would say to these people.

We walk into many moments in our lives without a map. Not all of them are dangerous or perilous. Some, on the surface at least, are joyous: The birth of a child is one of these. But, somehow even that event has a sequel. It is the moment when the realization strikes: This child, helpless and crying, is YOUR responsibility. 

It might be a sad occasion: The last member of the generation of your father and mother dies. The realization hits you that YOU are now the elder. Perhaps it is the occasion when it falls to you to tell someone you care for that someone they loved dearly has died. 

These moments in our lives are singularities. In a way there is no preparing for them, nothing will prepare you for them, no one can take care of them for you, no one else can experience them own your behalf. They are moments that linger in the mind. You will remember that you were on Peachtree — no the other Peachtree, the Peachtree perpendicular to Peachtree downtown — when the matter calls itself to mind and you do recall that something profound changed in you that moment. I expect that dying will be such a  moment as well.

There is a certain helplessness in these moments. You know you will and must go this way, it is not a matter of choice really, this is it, you are it, it is this time, and this is the correct Peachtree and you are to be going west.

On the other side of what awaits you will no longer be you as you know it. The person is the same, the trajectory of life is irrevocably different and always will be. Call it a personal apocalypse if you must, we all have them.

I admit, the apocalypse Jesus speaks of is much more thrilling and probably makes for better movies. The destruction of the temple changed the life of an entire people just as much as the exile once had. Not a single one of them would be the same again and neither would the world. The disciples who would soon find themselves on the outs with the temple and no longer welcome in its courts had their apocalypse before the destruction when they got kicked out. What was Jesus’ words to them? “When these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Lk 21:28)

This is really the lesson in the apocalypse according to Luke: When you see sudden, seismic, explosive, irrevocable changes, look, look to God, your salvation is in this. 

My favorite Peanut cartoon, probably a knock off of modern origin, has Charlie Brown say: “Some day we will all die, Snoopy.” “But,” Snoopy answers, “on all the other days we don’t.” 

Drastic changes in life that we live through, our personal apocalypses, can teach us something eternal. So many times, the “end” has come but it has not been our “end.” Somehow, the end brought something new. Did we embrace it? Did we receive it from the gracious hand of God? (Bonhoeffer WoV 736) Did we look up and see the beauty of new possibilities that only God Almighty could work? Or, did we protest and hang our head in dark places to lament our loss and pain? 

Is our world in the hands of a gracious God or is it not? I guess all of us have to answer that somehow and we answer it with our lives. 

“When these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Lk 21:28) 

The Texts for All Saints' Sunday, 2016

Note: It is All Saint's Sunday but the Greek study and one of the meditations actually work with the texts assigned to the 25th Sunday after the Pentecost which this Sunday officially is, unless All Saints' is transferred to this Sunday. As it happens, the text from Luke 20 lends itself well to preaching All Saints' if one chose to.

First Reading: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

1In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: 2I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, 3and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.

  15As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. 16I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: 17“As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. 18But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”

Psalm: Psalm 149

1 Hallelujah!

Sing to the LORD a new song; 

    sing his praise in the congregation of the faithful.

2 Let Israel rejoice in his Maker; 

    let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

3 Let them praise his Name in the dance; 

    let them sing praise to him with timbrel and harp.

4 For the LORD takes pleasure in his people 

    and adorns the poor with victory.

5

Let the faithful rejoice in triumph; 

    let them be joyful on their beds.

6 Let the praises of God be in their throat 

    and a two-edged sword in their hand;

7 To wreak vengeance on the nations 

    and punishment on the peoples;

8 To bind their kings in chains 

    and their nobles with links of iron;

9 To inflict on them the judgment decreed; 

    this is glory for all his faithful people.

    Hallelujah!

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:11-23

11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

  15I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Gospel: Luke 6:20-31

20Then [Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said: 

 “Blessed are you who are poor,

  for yours is the kingdom of God.

 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now,

  for you will be filled.

 “Blessed are you who weep now,

  for you will laugh.

  22“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

 24“But woe to you who are rich,

  for you have received your consolation.

 25“Woe to you who are full now,

  for you will be hungry.

 “Woe to you who are laughing now,

  for you will mourn and weep.

  26“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

  27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Luke 20:27-38

27Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to [Jesus] 28and 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. 29Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30then the second 31and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32Finally the woman also died. 33In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

  34Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

Luke 20:26-38 Greek Text Study

Greek Study Luke 20:27-38

v27 μη ειναι "there is no [resurrection]" - negated infinitive of the verb to-be serves to introduce a dependent statement stating what the Sadducees say; "the resurrection does not exist."

v28 ημιν dat. "for us" - Dative of advantage, "for our advantage" i.e. "Moses prescribed a regulation for us".

εαν + subj. "if" a conditional clause 3rd class, where the realization of the condition is a possibility. The quoted scripture is drawn from Deut.25:5, and Gen.38:8. "If a man dies and has no children, his brother should marry his widow".

ινα + subj. "[the man] must [marry]" -  natural sense of the apodosis in this conditional sentence is imperatival, it stands in place of an infinitive which, following εγραψεν, "wrote" forms a dependent statement expressing what Moses wrote.

εξαναστηση/ (εξανιστημι) aor. subj. "have children" – i.e. provide an heir.

v29 λαβων (λαμβανω) aor. part. "[the first one] married [a woman]" 

ατεκνος adj. "[died] childless" 

v30 ο δευτερος "the second"   

v31 ωσαυτως adv. "in the same way" 

  
v32 υστερον adv. "finally" afterwards, last, later, finally.

v33 η γυνη "the woman, wife”.  a nominative pendens as "the wife" is the focus of the question. 

εν + dat. "at [the resurrection]" - temporal, "at the time of..."

τινος αυτων gen. "whose [wife]" γινεται (γινομαι) pres. "will she become?" futuristic.

γαρ "since" Expressing cause.

οι ... επτα "the seven" 

γυναικα acc. "[were married] to her" - a double accusative construction; "since she was married to all seven of them".

v34 του αιωνος (ων ωνος) gen. "[the people] of [this] age" – 

v35 οι καταξιωθεντες aor. pas. part. "those who are judged worthy" divine reward would properly apply, and such reward would logically entail resurrection. So, the implication is that not everyone will participate in "the age to come".

τυχειν (τυγχανω) aor. inf. "of taking part in" infinitive is epexegetic explaining what they are considered worthy of sharing the age to come and the resurrection of the dead."

του αιωνος εκεινου "that age" genitive, as with της αναστασεως, "of the resurrection", is a genitive of direct object after the infinitive τυχειν.

ουτε .... ουτε "neither .... nor" - Comparative. It is not that there are no relationships in the KoG, rather there is no need to retain institutions that function for the purpose of continuing family line procreation. Jesus seems to reject the premise for marriage adopted by both Pharisee and Sadducee (and by Luther and the Medieval church and the Evangelical branch that exists in this age). Marriage is for those who die, but those who share in the resurrection do not die. Of course this implies procreation is the only purpose of marriage; remove procreation and there is no need for it (see vs 36). 

v36 γαρ "for” expressing cause explaining why there is no need to maintain the institution of marriage in heaven.

δυνανται (δυναμαι) pres. pas. "they are [not] able”

αποθανειν (αποθνησκω) aor. inf. "die" - infinitive is complementary.

ισαγγελοι (ος) adj. "like the angels" - possibly "equal to angels". A Hapax legomenon, They are angel-like in the sense that like angels, those who share in the resurrection will not die (Danker).

θεου (ος) gen. "[they are] God's [children]" – best members of the kingdom of God united to God.

οντες (ειμι) pres. part. "since" [they are] της αναστασεως (ις εως) gen. "[children] of the resurrection" – i.e. resurrection children.

v37 δε "but" επι + gen. "in the account" making the point that it's "at" that point in the Bible which speaks about the burning bush. 

της βατου "of the bush" Moses indicated in the passage concerning the thorn-bush".

και "even [Moses made known].  Jesus confines himself to the Pentateuch, the scriptures regarded authoritative by BOTH Pharisees and Sadducees.

οτι "that" introducing an object clause fronted for emphasis - which proposition Moses also obviously holds to be true; "that the dead are in fact raised", Barclay.

εγειρονται (εγειρω) pres. pas. "rise" Theological passive, God does the raising.

v38 θεος "God" - is not [the God] of νεκρων gen. adj. "the dead".

αλλα "but"  ζωντων (ζαω) gen. pres. part. "of the living ones” 

παντες "all [are alive]" all people both dead and alive.

ζωσιν (ζαω) pres. "are alive" as far as humanity is concerned, the dead are dead, but as far as God is concerned they are alive. But in what sense?  All those who are worthy will live such that what the Christian now shares corporately in Christ will be fulfilled individually at the Parousia (Ellis). Others say simply "the patriarchs live because of their association with the God of life" – the Pauline version is "alive in Christ".

An All Saints' Meditation on Luke 6:20-31

From the true Light there arises for us the light which illumines our darkened eyes. His glory shines upon the world and enlightens the very depths of the abyss. Death is annihilated, night has vanished, and the gates of Sheol are broken. Creatures lying in darkness from ancient times are clothed in light. The dead arise from the dust and sing because they have a Savior. He brings salvation and grants us life. He ascends to his Father on high. He will return in glorious splendor and shed His light on those gazing upon Him. — Ephraim the Syrian, “Hymn to the Light”

The price for All Saints’s Day is All Hallows’ Eve which has turned into a bit of a spectacle. First off: Many articles have been written about the origins of the festivities that are normal these days. No, they do not have ancient precedent in Druid Ireland and pagan commemorations that supposedly were displaced by All Saints’ day were actually never attested until after the 12th century whereas the celebration of All Saints’ day goes back to the 8th century. 

Second: Most of what travels our streets today is the product of the last 100 years. The fact that the mater is malleable should be obvious to us. Until about 20 years ago, we celebrated “Hell Night” in Detroit and other large cities. It was a game of urban renewal of sort as people went about and torched empty houses.

All that said: Most scary costumes worn today at beggars’ night are taken from the latest horror or dark action flick. Those have something in common: They celebrate earthly existence, often, as in the case of all zombie costumes, earthly existence that is merely a macabre continuation of the same identity that was only partially left behind at whatever gruesome death has been experienced. All ghost costumes belong in that file as well. 

The non scary costumes are of beautiful fantasy or whimsy imagination. They seem to say: “I want to be something other than what I am. I want to be something other than what I have to be day to day. I want to escape for a while.”

I have a confession to make: I don’t do costumes. I do not feel the point of it. Maybe it is because I was fairly self conscious as  kid. You could dress me up but that made me feel even more awkward about myself. Inside the costume, the kid felt no better about himself, maybe he even felt worse. Sometimes I think I see this type of loathing in the faces — what there is visible of them — of the children who walk the street of my little village. Somehow, the shell does not fit; it gives no comfort or joy. Probably it is because they are here and their best friend is in a different village and both would rather be where the other one is. What do I know. 

But seriously: Somehow the shell isn’t us. Even the shell we wear every day. Truly I tell you: those who love their mask will loose it and those who lose theirs for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel will find their true self for eternity. OK, so Jesus never said that. But I am not so sure that he would hate it.

The saints are to a certain degree, people who have in this life lost their mask. It has been taken from them. All of it. In the case of some saints, and I am thinking of the recently canonized Teresa Of Calcutta, even their confidence and certainty that many assume comes with having Faith, was taken and they lived in only hope and longing that somehow what they at one point were certain was true, good, precious, and divine was also real and that it would meet them at the door of death. In short, they could not live fantasy as it was shattered by doubt or martyrdom. They also did not and would not settle for mere earthly existence even if that existence was to prolong itself indefinitely as some sort of unvanquished “spirit,” and they certainly did not succumb to any macabre distortion of life. 

Those who find themselves on the “blessed” chart in Jesus’ Beatitudes might well be in this camp in general. 

The festival we call “All Saints” was meant to hold up true humanity lived in Faith. Yes, everyone might fall into that camp but we know that many do not. Saints are revered because somehow we saw in them not people wearing the mask of Christ but people who were Christ’s mask in the world. They somehow picked up a cross and walked the world. 

The devil has many nights. We fear those nights and console ourselves with security in the from of riches, comfort, prestige, and laughter. Saints seem to have been stripped of all those and of the enjoyment of those. See Francis of Assisi or Benedict of Nursia for example. They lost them and did suffer the words of Luke 6:28-30, sufferings that they accepted and eventually cherished as having purified them in Faith and giving them a shape, a form, that was only conceivable if Jesus Christ was real and alive — in them. 

We ask ourselves on this day: Do I wear a mask because I am keeping the dark at bay with it, hoping it will even scare the flesh, the world, and the devil from coming close? Do I make sense as a mask of Christ? 

An All Saints' Meditation on Luke 20:27-40

We should love God without a reward - Ephraim the Syrian

The triumphal entry to Jerusalem has happened, tears have been shed over Jerusalem, the place God has been faithful to for ever so many generations, the place that has returned the favor with unfaith.

Jesus has struck a blow at the heart of Jerusalem, the Temple. The traders and money changers have had their business interrupted for a day. Jesus has now attracted the attention of those who are to be the tenants of the vineyard who have usurped ownership of the vines and turned it into their source of power, prestige, and wealth. Did they do that deliberately? Did they do so consciously? Did they wake up one day and say to one another: “This God of Hosts thing isn’t working for me anymore and if you think it is working for the young people you are not paying attention. If you don’t believe me, you are whistling past the graveyard. We need new methods and a new message. I’ll tell you what we’ll do . . .” Now that I write that . . . nahh . . . 

In all seriousness, these things happen slowly. Faithfulness and expediency do not live together peacefully. (Lk 20:19-26) Institutions and the Faith that built them are always capable of enmity toward one another. In matters of Faith, spiritually speaking, people tend to build shacks and not cathedrals. To add to them is both pointless and ultimately ends in collapse. Maybe we are reading such a story of collapse in Luke 20. 

The Sadducees, writes Ephraim the Syrian, called themselves “the just” [saddiqim] because they served God even in the face of the conviction that there is no resurrection. (they also do not believe in angels or spirit - Acts 23:8) It was a proud way of saying: There is no reward for serving God. That is most certainly true. Even Jesus says this in the parable of the servant and the master. (Lk 17:6-10) Like all other simple truths one is left with the choice to seek the source of it, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, or to build a shack dedicated to the snippet of truth only to overlook the God who stands behind the truth.

Chapter 20 of the Gospel of Luke are about the clash between a much cherished place of hope and the God who it is to represent. The fact that it is a cherished institution that those who have no hope nonetheless give themselves to in order to gain peace is exemplified in the story of the widow’s coins. (Lk 21:1-4)

That widow, in those two coins, is certainly not making her contribution because the Temple is pretty. (Lk 21:5-6) What religion does one invest in that only puts up pretty buildings? If there is really no connection to the eternal “Was,” “Is,” and “Will Be,” a tangible one for the individual, then there really is no reason to involve oneself unless one can do so for external, personal affirmation. That affirmation is fickle and fleeting and must be defended, perhaps even violently. That affirmation is not merely on display in riches and power. It is on display in about every “eulogy” or modern living hagiography I have ever heard. 

The widow does not have enough copper to buy the affirmation. Jesus’ affirmation of her echoes the Beatitudes of chapter 6: Blessed are the poor, the kingdom of heaven has noticed them and has heard their longing cries (Lk 18:1-8), and that kingdom is for them. That kingdom knows that one cannot simply hide from answering for ones life in a comfortable grave. (Lk 12:4-5)

With that, it might be good to look at Sadducees a bit to understand the argument. We know that they disappeared after the destruction of the temple. Political  expedience exacted its price at the collapse of Jerusalem and the Temple, powers to which the Sadducees were too closely tied. We know from Josephus that they were politically powerful having cultivated and extend their influence in Israel ever since their appearance under the Hasmonean period. They were successful but not necessarily wealthy, though they had access to people with wealth. (Ross, 2013) Ross concludes that, in general: “The Sadducees pictured God and humans as independent and distant, both in this life and the next. Rewards for righteousness were in this life, and hence they were keen on wealth and influence as evidence of divine blessing.” There is an obvious contradiction here with the report of Ephraim. The reason for that might well be that we only know about them from the writings of those who did not like them, so our knowledge of their thinking is incomplete.

They had a lot in common with us: They believed in free will. If it happens, people did it and people willed it. They did not think anything was binding on them unless it was written and they assumed the Torah to be superior to any subsequent writings, especially the apocalyptic ones like Daniel were the Resurrection is prominent. The Pharisees had their interpretive tradition but the Sadducees rejected it preferring the use of logic and understanding applied by the people of the present alone when reading scripture. They acknowledged angels but refused the Pharisaic idea that the dead became angels. (Ross, 2013) Jesus insistence that the dead become “Like the angels” addresses that argument. 

When the Sadducees hear of the lion laying down with the lamb they envisioned dinner for the lion, not shalom. Have we ever sat in a bible study where someone had to point out that a lion's digestive track forbade Isaiah vision? I have. I have names. What you see is how thing are and will be. If there is a world to come, and they did not pose the possibility saying it was inconclusive since God did not say so clearly in the Torah, it would be just like this one. It represents an unwillingness or an incapacity to imagine more and better.

But back to the widow. As Jesus says: She gave everything she had to give - to an institution he had just condemned utterly, that was run by people without a vision of her redemption. She is poor. It matters little whether the Sadducees thought that she was poor for reasons of lack of righteousness or whether they thought she should not have worried that she was poor because the righteous are somehow unconcerned whether God rewards them or not. Either way, she is and will remain poor under their care. Is there no vision of how her life might be different? Is there no vision that God might care and actually do something about it?

What vision do we have for the poor, the sinner, the life lived into shambles? What vision do we have for those who are dying? What vision do we have for those who come to the end of a life made misery by the world, the actions of others, outrageous fortunes, and even their own flesh? Is this really all there is and if anything follows it will be more of the same? If the lamb in Paradise must yet fear the lion, why would it go there. Unless lambs somehow get satisfaction out of being eaten. I wouldn’t know. 

Our faith is driven by the idea that there is a resurrection and a time of redemption according to God’s holy vision of the Kingdom. The temptation is to lose that vision. This Sunday might be a good opportunity to ask: How are you and God’s vision meeting?

The Texts for Reformation Sunday, 2016 (OT and Gospel Pentecost 24)

First Reading: Isaiah 1:10-18

 10Hear the word of the Lord,

  you rulers of Sodom!

 Listen to the teaching of our God,

  you people of Gomorrah!

 11What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?

  says the Lord;

 I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams

  and the fat of fed beasts;

 I do not delight in the blood of bulls,

  or of lambs, or of goats.

 12When you come to appear before me,

  who asked this from your hand?

  Trample my courts no more;

 13bringing offerings is futile;

  incense is an abomination to me.

 New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—

  I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

 14Your new moons and your appointed festivals

  my soul hates;

 they have become a burden to me,

  I am weary of bearing them.

 15When you stretch out your hands,

  I will hide my eyes from you;

 even though you make many prayers,

  I will not listen;

  your hands are full of blood.

 16Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

  remove the evil of your doings

  from before my eyes;

 cease to do evil,

  17learn to do good;

 seek justice,

  rescue the oppressed,

 defend the orphan,

  plead for the widow.

 18Come now, let us argue it out,

  says the Lord:

 though your sins are like scarlet,

  they shall be like snow;

 though they are red like crimson,

  they shall become like wool.

Psalm: Psalm 46

1 God is our refuge and strength, 

    a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, 

    and though the mountains be toppled into the

depths of the sea;

3 Though its waters rage and foam, 

    and though the mountains tremble at its tumult.

4 The LORD of hosts is with us; 

    the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

5 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, 

    the holy habitation of the Most High.

6 God is in the midst of her;

she shall not be overthrown; 

    God shall help her at the break of day.

7 The nations make much ado, and the kingdoms are shaken; 

    God has spoken, and the earth shall melt away.

8 The LORD of hosts is with us; 

    the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

9 Come now and look upon the works of the LORD, 

    what awesome things he has done on earth.

10 It is he who makes war to cease in all the world; 

    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear,

    and burns the shields with fire.

11 "Be still, then, and know that I am God; 

    I will be exalted among the nations;

    I will be exalted in the earth."

12 The LORD of hosts is with us; 

    the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Second Reading: Romans 3:19-28

19Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

  21But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

  27Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

Gospel: Luke 19:1-10

1[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through it.2A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 6So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” 8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” 9Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”