32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, RCL)

The psalmist is bossy: “Sing to the Lord a new song.”

What do you want Jesus to do or say?

My church is located in the first municipality in the country with a public reparations fund.

Sometimes I picture its author looking down at us and shaking his head.

Sometimes someone else has to start singing before we can.

What men have placed a premium on, God has not.

Resurrection is where God is—across generations, across circumstances.

God loves the creation. In response the creation sings praise and adoration to God.

Job describes “an iron pen” with which words could be “engraved on a rock forever.” Few writers have such a pen. Even C. S. Lewis might well have been surprised that The Screwtape Letters has enjoyed such a long life. 

Some years ago, a small group in our church watched the award-winning documentary The Fog of War, in which former secretary of defense Robert McNamara talks about his life, especially the Vietnam War.

We need to be reminded, as we celebrate Pentecost, that the Spirit is always much bigger and more "other" than we normally think.

I would just as soon skip the first part of this Gospel reading. The Sadducees are trying to trick Jesus by getting him to respond to an impossible question about the resurrection. According to the law, if one of two brothers dies before his wife has children, then his brother marries her. But what if there are seven brothers, and each marries the woman in turn? To whom will she belong at the resurrection?