proper 22
Free to serve: Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46
We need to repent of offering the world our charitable leftovers and then pouting when the world doesn’t say thank you.
Couples: Mark 10:2-16
Marriage does not exist only for companionship or procreation or complementarity. It has a cruciform shape, like other ascetical practices, and is a transformative experience for the two individuals. In marriage, God intends not only to alleviate human loneliness but to effect human salvation.
Dinner reservations: Matthew 21:33-46
The first Sunday of October is World Communion Sunday. Christians around the world remember that we are linked with brothers and sisters of all colors and languages. There is no better time to remind ourselves of this truth than in these days, when so much of the world is divided into a multitude of warring camps.
Measure of faith: 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10
An emphasis on the decision character of faith has a long and deep history in the American psyche going back to our Puritan and evangelical ancestors. From Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney to Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and their successors, faith, as encountered in the idiom both of born-again revivalism and of religious “progressives,” has served as shorthand for “I have decided to follow Jesus.” But the biblical meaning of faith cannot be reduced to individualistic voluntarism.
Jacob's ladder: Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
After 9/11, an incredible respect for life wove together the disparate humanity that worked the edges of the New York abyss. Iron workers, rescue teams, volunteers, chaplains, tourists, stricken loved ones—all were woven together in the solidarity of citizenship of those regarded by God as “for a little while lower than the angels.”
Missing the point: Matthew 21:33-46
Jesus offers a stick in his listeners' eye.