Scripture Meditation for June 2. Lectionary # 355

Scripture: June 2. Lectionary # 355: II Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12. Psalm 123:1-2,2. Mark 12:18-27: Paul speaks to Timothy as a parent and an apostle would speak to his son and his understudy in discipleship. Timothy has already been anointed for a leadership role in the church; Paul is now encouraging him to be faithful to the call of witnessing to Jesus especially when there are difficulties, trials, and persecution. We are fortunate to have both of the epistles to Timothy whether Paul wrote them or some other inspired sacred writer guided by the Holy Spirit. The epistle gives us the customary introduction and Paul's personal prayer for Timothy. This is followed by the words grace, mercy, and peace which are signs of God's holy covenant and gifts of the Spirit as well. All three Persons of the Trinity are mentioned in our passage and thus these gifts are from them too. And Paul has this beautiful phrase: "STIR INTO FLAME THE GIFT OF GOD BESTOWED ON YOU. NEVER BE ASHAMED OF YOUR TESTIMONY TO OUR LORD." In the Gospel we now turn to another group of religious minded leaders--the Sadduccees who try to trick Jesus with a preposterous story invented by them. Jesus as the Wisdom and Word of God has no trouble in offsetting their rediculous presentation of a woman who was married seven times to seven brothers or relatives of the same family. Whose wife will she be in heaven, since all seven were her husbands. Jesus confronts them at the very premise they pose and destroys what they think is a tour de force. He tells them there is no giving or continuing of marriage in heaven but a new and different life that is eternal and spiritual and not bound by the laws of marriage. Knowing where they are coming from, he has no difficulty in cutting to the core their argument given in story form. He uses his own strong point about the fact there is a resurrection and that God is always alive and eternal. He returns them to their own Scriptures by telling how Moses and the prophets relate to a God of the living. God is a God of the living not of the dead. He tells the Sadduccees they are sadly mistaken and mislead. They failed to understand the Scriptures and the power of God. God says, "I am a God of the living, not of the dead. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." The seven men and the woman would therefore be like the angels in heaven where there is no giving and taking in marriage. Amen.