Lectionary Readings
(from the Revised Common Lectionary)
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This lectionary covers the next thirty days. For full lists, see the seasons and years below.
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Proper 16 (21)—Season after Pentecost, Year C
Summary
That Jesus' teaching is practical and logical is not always discussed. Here, Jesus contradicts the synagogue leader's scrupulosity by making an argument a fortiori. If certain material goods can be provided for on the Sabbath, then certainly human beings, who are of greater worth, may be as well. This is essentially the same format as the parables in Luke 15 leading up to the prodigal son. The message is "if you would go to great lengths to go after one expensive sheep, or one month's wage, then what about a human being? Aren't they worth more than these?" The woman in the miracle also becomes a microcosm of the human race, bent over by sin. Jesus comes to heal from sin, and none may accuse whom he has vindicated.
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Proper 17 (22)—Season after Pentecost, Year C
Summary
In Luke 14, the eschatalogical banquet of the kingdom of God is compared with the ordinary meals that people share with each other. The latter ought to reflect the former, and the repayment for generosity in this life is to be found in the life to come.
Here is an opportunity for the preacher to explain the New Testament's vision of charity to the poor. The act displays total reliance on God for repayment. Nothing we have in this life: either money, material goods, or time, is completely frivolous. All of it represents sustenance, enjoyment, or social capital, in short, the stuff of life itself and the things that make it worth living. People recoil from giving because they rightly perceive that they are giving away parts of their life—the only one they've got. Jesus, again, does not repudiate the activity of providing for oneself, but rather recommends wise investment. Eternal repayment awaits those who give to the least fortunate precisely because there is no worldly repayment. Charity is an act of faith in God, and the life to come. Only those who have shown that they believe enough to give toward that life are counted worthy to enter it.
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Proper 18 (23)—Season after Pentecost, Year C
Summary
A misunderstanding of the word "hate" here has caused much confusion. A Hebraicism, it means the opposite of "prefer." Jesus is not prohibiting love of family or holding possessions (v. 33) but demanding that he be put first in people's lives. The disciple must be ready to renounce family, wealth, and anything if it comes between him and Jesus.
The idea may seem afar off to many modern Christians, but the reality is coming on quickly. It seems likely that there will be a very near future in the West which the Christian's adherence to the moral vision of the New Testament will disqualify them for employment and social status and put them at variance with those closest to them, and whom they depend on (indeed, in many places this regime has already arrived). In these cases, Christians must soberly take account of the cost of the Way to which they have been called, not so that they may decide whether it is worth it, but so that they may steel themselves for the journey.
This is why Jesus warns against the sin of apostasy: a Christian who sets out and then stalls halfway presents a unique conundrum: if one has let go of the lifeline, then what else is there to grab hold of? We see many jaded, lapsed, former Christians today whose very history in the church inoculates them to taking hold again of grace. Jesus' command is stark here, but believers who pass these tests may rejoice in the confirmation that they have proven themselves true disciples.
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Proper 19 (24)—Season after Pentecost, Year C
Summary
These parables have been unfortunately segmented off from the parable of the Prodigal Son, which they play the prelude to. Here, Jesus responds to the offense given by his attention to the dishonorable by two parables, each with the same message but aimed at a male and female audience.
The lost sheep has been often made into a sweet picture of God's willingness to leave the great flock to go after "just one" but this gets the intent totally wrong. Sheep for a shepherd of the ancient world were about as valuable as a used car. That a shepherd would leave his flock to go after the one would have been blatantly obvious to anyone in the biz.
Next, Jesus turns to the ladies and asks which of them would not sweep their house to find a lost silver coin (worth about a month's wages). The answer would have been the same as the first parable.
This sets the stage for the prodigal Son by moving from the lesser material things, to the more valuable human being, lost to sin, but found by God. Given the difficulty posed by the protracted pericope, the preacher may choose to simply emphasize that people are valuable to God, and so their welfare and eternal destiny ought to be as valuable to us.
