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God’s party time: Luke 15:1-10; 1 Timothy 1:12-17

I can never read stories about Jesus and his closest conversation partners, the Pharisees, without remembering JOY with some bemusement. JOY was the junior girls’ group in the small mission church in which I grew up, and it stood for “Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.” It is perhaps no accident that this tiny social group spawned a number of staunch feminists, but that’s another story.

Shrewd steward: Luke 16:1-13

One of the strengths of my Anabaptist tradition is that it takes the Bible and biblical authority seriously but also expects believers, particularly younger people, to argue and raise questions about the text. The parable of the shifty steward in Luke 16 was a delight to my friends and me in our coming-of-age years. Any adult defending a “one right answer” approach to biblical interpretation had to be prepared to take on a barrage of questions about this parable from avid teenagers.