Above: A Mouse Trap
Image in the Public Domain
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The Collect:
Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.
By your merciful protection awaken us to the threatening dangers of our sins,
and keep us blameless until the coming of your new day,
for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever . Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 18
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The Assigned Readings:
Micah 5:1-5a
Psalm 79
Luke 21:34-38
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Their blood have they spilt like water on every side of Jerusalem:
and there is none to bury them.
–Psalm 79:3, The Alternative Service Book 1980
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The scene in Micah 5 is dire. Enemies have besieged Jerusalem and humiliated the monarch. Deliverance, the text says, will come via a future king of the Davidic Dynasty. There will be a way out of the trap–yet not soon.
The metaphor of a trap occurs in Luke 21:34. The arrival of God’s new order will be like the springing of a trap, the verse tells us. Woe to those whom the arrival of the Kingdom of God in its fullness catches unaware, the passage tells us also. The literary context for that pericope is Holy Week, when our Lord and Savior’s opponents sought to ensnare him. And, as a note in a study Bible told me, come ancient copies of Lukan Gospel insert the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery between 21:36 and 21:37. In that floating pericope, which settled down eventually as John 7:53-8:11, religious authorities trapped a woman and sought to spring a trap on Jesus, but he trapped them and let the woman go instead.
The post-Babylonian Exilic period did not witness the flowering of the Davidic Dynasty and Judean national glory, contrary to many hopes. Many people have applied Micah 5:1-5a to Jesus instead, but the events of the past two millennia have not confirmed certain expectations of Christ which some have poured into certain passages of scripture. Perhaps the trap from which we need deliverance the most is the snare of our own incorrect assumptions. If Jesus disappoints us, the fault resides within our minds, not with him. There is also the matter of divine scheduling, for we mere mortals are temporal, short-lived, and often terribly impatient. God, however, has a different perspective, one we cannot comprehend.
The full arrival of God’s order is waiting, like a yet-unsprung trap. May we who call ourselves Christians remain alert and active, growing in active faith, doing better at loving others–our friends and enemies alike–as ourselves, being salt and light in the world, and enjoying God all along the way. Whenever we meet God in a manner other than we do most of the time, may God find us occupied with those activities.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 20, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARY A. LATHBURY, U.S. METHODIST HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT BERTILLA BOSCARDIN, ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN AND NURSE
THE FEAST OF JOHN HARRIS BURT, EPISCOPAL PRIEST
THE FEAST OF TARORE OF WAHAORA, ANGLICAN MARTYR
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Adapted from this post:
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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