God Pause Devotion Sample
 Luke 20:27-38
On occasion I read the "On Faith" columns and blogs on the Washington Post's Web site (www.washingtonpost.com). While many of the posters are articulate, polite and thoughtful, I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who aren't. There is so much vitriol about the faith, the church, even the teachings of Christ himself. These writers have no interest in fostering dialogue with those who hold opposing viewpoints. They're intent on demeaning what they see as irrelevant, oppressive, simplistic ideas. It's eye-opening, and more than a little depressing.
Jesus must have felt that on occasion. Time and again he is surrounded by people who are intent on tripping him up and discrediting his teaching and authority. In this chapter we find Jesus in the middle of a rabbinical argument on how to read scripture. The questions he's asked are antagonistic. They're meant to set Jesus up.
So how should Jesus respond? With venom, reason, defensiveness, pity, sarcasm? At times we, too, encounter detractors to the faith - online or face-to-face. How are we called to respond?
Lord, the world is full of people who want to discredit your power, even your very existence. Give us the courage to speak out for you - and to do so with clarity, compassion and conviction. Amen.
Devotion for 11/8/2007 by:
Shelley Cunningham
Christ the King Lutheran Church, New Brighton, Minn.
Master of Divinity, 1998
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| Luke 20:27-38 (NRSV)
27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him
28 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.
29 "Now there were seven brothers; the first married and died childless;
30 "then the second
31 "and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.
32 "Finally the woman also died.
33 "In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."
34 Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage;
35 "but 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.
36 "Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.
37 "And 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.
38 "Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."
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Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.