Luke 20:41-21:4
The way Luke 20 ends and chapter 21 opens is an odd juxtaposition, is it not? I mean, how can Luke go from answering this dense, challenging theological question, to discussing a widow being generous with her limited finances. That’s just a really odd transition and it doesn’t seem to make any sense, at least not at first. The issue at hand in the first episode, where Jesus poses the question of how he could both be David’s Lord and his son, is that people were simply missing the point. They were not recognizing that God’s way of viewing things is much bigger than the way that we view things. God’s presence in human form could not be limited by a finite understanding of the way that things were supposed to be. In the second episode, in which a widow made a seemingly small donation at the temple, the issue is the same: people were not viewing things in the way that God views things. All they saw was a woman giving a small amount of money. God saw a woman giving everything they had. When Jesus was discussing the issue with David, all people saw was an apparent contradiction. God saw His divine plan being carried out through the incarnation.
Far too often we can fall into the same trap of the people that Jesus was having this conversation with. It’s so easy for us to see things in the manner in which we have been trained to see them, but completely neglect to consider what it means for us to view things in the way that God views them. Our world is filled with injustices masquerading as if they were helpful services for all people. But, it is so easy for us to miss the injustice and buy into the belief that it’s a good thing. Only when we consider what it looks like to consider things as God does will we be able to see things as they really are.
What are things that we see on a daily basis that many people may assume to be good things, but may not be as good as they seem?
In what ways does Christianity disguise injustice as a blessing?
(By Cody Poinsett)