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

After Jesus shared his last supper with his friends, they sang a hymn together. There is every reason to believe it was the Hallel, Psalms 113 through 118. How have I missed this before?

It seems there is no time simply to weep over the wrong of the world. The public’s instinct that we have a share in victims’ suffering doesn’t find a fit way to grieve just for them.

The steward's only failing may be that he's replaceable, and the lesson he learns is that money talks.

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.

In these days of Enron, Martha Stewart and wars waged over phantom weapons, we know better than to defend dishonesty. Then why would Jesus offer a parable lauding it? Upon closer inspection, however, this parable is just one in a long line of stories that Jesus tells about how to handle wealth.