ordinary time

Luke 12:32-40

When a child is ignoring basic responsibilities, parents rely on a well-known parenting technique to make a point. Mom looks her ten-year-old in the eye while holding a toothpaste tube in one hand and the cap in the other. “This is called toothpaste,” she says, “and this is called a cap. They go together.” The Lord God is not beyond impatience and remedial instruction when people need a reminder about neglected responsibilities. God held a basket of ripened summer fruit beneath Amos’s nose and said, “Amos, what do you see here?” The prophet, sensing that God was serious, didn’t bother joking. “A basket of summer fruit,” he replied. With that brief exchange, strangely similar to a parent remedially instructing a child, the doors opened to a flood of divine wrath.

“Are you scribes gone awry?” Jesus asks us. “Have you got good religion?”

This Hebrews text is a word crafted for a specific people by a caring preacher.

We see in Bartimaeus's story the same basic elements that are present in the calling of Jesus’ first disciples.