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In writing sermons I try to pay attention to transitions, and so I confess that I have a quarrel with the cutting and pasting of Gospel texts for the 10th and 11th Sundays after Pentecost. The bridge passage that connects them (Luke 12:22-31), which is excised, is both a valuable commentary on what has gone before—Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions—and a preparation for what is to come—Seek the kingdom and these things will be given to you. I suggest backing up a few verses before reading this week’s Gospel lesson.

The Christian faith is never lived, taught or preached in a vacuum. There is always an alternative to it: another philosophy, another religion, another ideal. “I see that you have many gods,” Paul noted when he looked around first-century Athens, and indeed the Greeks had a god for everything: for wealth, beauty, fertility, immortality, warfare and more. Statues of the gods were constructed to communicate permanence and power. The gods helped people orient their lives toward achieving these ends: becoming wealthy, healthy and beautiful and avoiding death.