The Memorial of Saint Boniface
But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, persecutions, and sufferings — those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you remain in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Many are my persecutors and my adversaries. I haven't swerved from your testimonies. All of your words are truth. Every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever. Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. Those who love your law have great peace. Nothing causes them to stumble. I have hoped for your salvation, Lord. I have done your commandments. I have obeyed your precepts and your testimonies, for all my ways are before you.
Jesus responded, as he taught in the temple, "How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? For David himself said in the Holy Spirit, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet."' Therefore David himself calls him Lord, so how can he be his son?" The common people heard him gladly.
Saint Boniface, the eighth-century English monk who became known as the "Apostle to the Germans," gave his life proclaiming Christ in what is now Germany and the Netherlands. His martyrdom reminds us that faithful witness sometimes comes at great cost.
The tension in today's Gospel captures something essential about following Jesus. The scribes think they have Christ figured out - he's David's son, case closed. But Jesus pushes deeper, revealing a paradox that shatters their neat categories. How can the Messiah be both David's descendant and David's Lord? The mystery points to something beyond human logic: the divine breaking into the ordinary world in ways that confound our expectations.
Paul's words to Timothy echo this same theme of embracing what we cannot fully control or predict. Notice how he doesn't promise Timothy an easy path - quite the opposite. Persecution, suffering, and opposition are part of the package for those who "desire to live godly in Christ Jesus." Yet Paul anchors Timothy not in techniques for avoiding hardship, but in Scripture's power to equip us for whatever comes.
The psalm weaves through this same territory - surrounded by adversaries yet standing firm, finding peace not through the absence of conflict but through love of God's law. There's a quiet strength here that doesn't depend on circumstances aligning perfectly.
This speaks directly to our Wednesday afternoons when faith feels complicated, when the path forward isn't clear, when we're caught between what we thought we understood and what God might actually be asking. The common people heard Jesus gladly not because he made everything simple, but because he offered something real.
What expectations about how faith "should" work might be limiting our openness to how God actually moves? How do we find peace when the path ahead feels uncertain?