Proper 26, Year C, Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4, Luke 19:1-10 Reconciliation is difficult. It often means we have to look beyond ourselves at the greater good. Our wounds have to healed enough even though they may still sting or have scabs. Miroslav Volf, one of the speakers at clergy conference last week says that there are four components to reconciliation. Remember, repent or forgive, repair, and embrace. Most of us believe that our memories are good and that we have no problem remembering things, such as when we have been hurt by someone else. Nor do we always believe that we have hurt someone by our actions. Sometimes the hurt we inflict is completely unintentional or we may say that the other
Proper 25, Year C, Luke 18:9-14 Two men go out one day seeking God. Each acts in accordance to who they are. One is a Pharisee. He is the model citizen with whom no one can complain about. He does everything he should. He follows all the rules including fasting and giving 10% of his income to the church. The second man is a Tax Collector. We often want to equate Tax Collectors in the Bible with IRS workers, but we can’t. They are absolutely different. In the Bible, a Tax Collector or a Publican is a person who had the direct responsibility for collecting regular taxes. The collection of taxes was farmed out by the government to private contractors who paid a stipulated price in advance for t
Proper 24, Year C, Luke 18:1-8 How many of us enjoy doing the same thing over and over again. A friend of mine had a summer job growing up at a green bean canning plant. He was on what they called first line, the first part of the conveyor process which the trucks unload on to. He along with a couple of other high school boys would sort through the beans pulling out large items such as sticks, rocks, and rats. It was a rather mundane job watching the green beans zoom by over and over again, all day long. So every once in a while, just for fun, the guys on first line would let a rat go by just to listen to the ladies in the next room scream. My story might lead you to believe that we are talk
Proper 23, Year C, Luke 17:11-19 Get up and go! This is what Jesus tells the Samaritan after the Samaritan offers Jesus praise. Mary, likewise, gets up and goes to Elizabeth to tell her what she has experienced after the Annunciation, when she is told that she is pregnant and carrying the Messiah. The shepherds, at Jesus’ birth, give praise to him. Then they get up and go to tell the world all of what they have heard and seen. Get up and go seems to be a common narrative in the Bible after we have offered praise and thanksgiving for what God had done in our lives. In today’s narrative we have a leprous Samaritan who returns to the Lord, with praise and thanksgiving. Then he moves forward; ge
