I am not privy to the ways of the lectionary, either ancient or modern, and sometimes I see the connections clearly between the readings and sometimes I do not. I had a hard time making sense of how Hebrews 9:24-28 fits with the other readings for the Thirty Second Sunday and the responsorial Psalm, each of which focuses on those who are faithful and generous in their poverty and God’s compassion for the poor, the outcast and marginalized. I thought I might avoid posting altogether, until I read, and reread, Barbara Green’s post. She has dealt beautifully with these readings in her post below. The conclusion of her entry made me wonder if it could be applicable to the reading from Hebrews; she wrote, “but these gifts of compassion, where the widows continue to be generous despite everything, offer an even greater invitation to us, which Jesus himself seems to recognize and learn from, be inspired by. Give from our substance, give it generously, compassionately.”

While she did not draw a connection from 1 Kings and Mark to the reading from Hebrews, her last line, “give from our substance, give it generously, compassionately,” drew me to the description of Christ’s sacrifice in Hebrews. Is this what was intended by those who compiled the lectionary? There seems to be little in common with the cosmic significance of Christ’s sacrifice and the generosity of the widows, but is that truly the case?

Hebrews is a text that has usually intrigued me due to Platonic categories of the “ideal” and the “copy,” that show evidence of Hellenistic Jewish philosophy, such as that found in Philo of Alexandria, grounded not in the compassion of widows, but in Greco-Roman metaphysical categories. But the more I reflected on Green’s line, “give from our substance, give it generously, compassionately,” it also sums up Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, made once for all, and the category of the “real” at which the author of Hebrews aims. Christ gave of his true substance, his being, so that we too could enter with him not into a sanctuary “made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one”, but “into heaven itself.” We should be inspired by this, just as by the widows to “give from our substance, give it generously, compassionately.” It also makes me thankful that we can rely on other scholars, other thinkers, who in their work and writing give of themselves, for inspiration can strike in many, unforeseen, ways.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.