25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, RCL)

For Jesus, the inverse of scarcity isn’t abundance—it’s accumulation.

The inability to make sense of the parable of the unjust manager allows us to experience confusion similar to those first students of Jesus.

Jeremiah has to learn to name the reality that is right in front of him.

The first Easter was a wrecked scene of dispirited disciples in the shadows of an insurrection.

Jesus has a zeal against the human willingness to turn wealth into an idol.

Jesus is talking to two different audiences.

The Gospels show Jesus as prophet, teacher, and miracle worker. But most intriguingly, they depict him as a storyteller--one who could not only draw a crowd but keep it riveted.

What is Jesus thinking when he tells the parable of the dishonest steward?

Could the Spirit's love be poured into the hearts of people untouched by the incarnation? Could non-Christians be lovers of the only God there is?

It’s no secret that I love Ordinary Time.

As time goes on, I find that the seasons I love the most in the liturgical year aren’t the high holy feasts, but the ordinary ones.

By the third century, the gesture of giving became miniaturized.

The Prodigal Son is often read to mean that God loves sinners, whereas the Jews thought God only loved the righteous. This makes no sense.

In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, my dad couldn't sing national songs. The Nazis saw the church's Psalter, however, as innocuous. Little did they know.

“Life isn’t fair,” my four-year-old granddaughter once told me. She offered this judgment as a thoughtful observation, not a whining complaint.

I remember taking genuine pleasure in her remark—not just a delight in her early capacity for philosophical reflection, but also a sense that this particular wisdom could be of blessing in the life ahead of her.