Illuminations on the Lectionary readings for Sept. 21, 2025 (Pentecost 15C/Proper 20)

Parable of the Unjust Steward (c.1540), oil painting by Marinus van Reymerswaele (c.1490-c.1546). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

“You cannot serve God and wealth.” Jesus speaks so often and so consistently about the dangers of riches and our obligation to support the poor that we really need to take this message seriously. This call to use our wealth to care for the poor, widows, orphans, and immigrants is deeply rooted in the Torah, the Law of Judaism that Jesus knew and taught. We hear this call in Sunday’s Track One first reading, as Jeremiah grieves with profound emotion over the people’s failure of righteousness and justice. They hoard riches and ignore the poor. The prophet mourns deeply, imagining God’s own mourning: “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

First Reading (Track Two): Amos 8:4-7

If the ancient prophets in the Hebrew Bible often sound angry, it is likely because they have to keep shouting the same message to the same people over and over again. In Sunday’s Track Two first reading, the Prophet Amos echoes this stern prophetic chorus: The people languish in exile, their city in ruins, and the temple destroyed. When we fail to take care of the poor and the needy, when we lie, cheat, and steal, and act as if we did nothing wrong, God grows angry, Jeremiah shouts. For such acts and omissions, there are consequences!

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 79:1-9

Sunday’s Track One psalm echoes Jeremiah’s weeping prophecy in its mournful lament for desolate and shattered Jerusalem after the Exile. Jerusalem is rubble. The unburied bodies of martyred faithful lie out as food for birds and beasts; their blood runs like water around the city. The people are the objects of scorn; they feel only God’s fury blazing like fire. The Psalm concludes with heartfelt prayers for God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 113

Even if the people won’t help the poor and the needy, the Psalmist sings, God will always do so. God is blessed through all eternity, we sing; God is worthy of praise. The psalm goes on: God sits high above all nations and above the heavens. Yet God also looks down and sees humanity … and reaches down to gently lift up the needy, the poor, and the disappointed, gently placing them in seats at the tables of royalty.

Second Reading: 1 Timothy 2:1-7

Pray for everyone, and don’t neglect to pray for the kings and leaders of the community, urges the author of the first letter to Timothy. He enumerates four kinds of prayer: supplications, or specific requests; petitionary prayers, asking for help; intercessions, or urgent requests; and thanksgiving, expressing gratitude. Remember that God is one, the author tells us, and that Jesus – who was both divine and also human like us – gave himself for our salvation.

Gospel: Luke 16:1-13

This parable makes us stop and think, as good parables should. On the surface, it may appear to hold up dishonest behavior as a good thing because it gets results. Or does it? Jesus rarely speaks well of the rich, and that’s particularly the case in Luke. Indeed, he hammers home his simple point: If you’re dishonest about wealth, you can’t be trusted with truly valuable things. “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much,” Jesus says, concluding the passage with the familiar warning, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Illuminations on the Lectionary readings for Sept. 14, 2025 (Pentecost 14C/Proper 19)

Parable of the Lost Piece of Silver (c.1680), oil painting on canvas by Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706). The Leiden Collection, New York. Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Scripture is full of apparent contradictions. One verse might portray God as dealing destruction with righteous, stormy anger. But open your Bible to another page and find an image of overwhelming, steadfast love. Happily, divine love ultimately prevails. This week’s passage from Jeremiah shows us an angry side of God in an image that might remind us of a loving parent brought to rope’s end by misbehaving children. “My people are foolish,” the prophet’s vision of God declares. “They are stupid children … they have no understanding.” The promised land shall be desolated, God warns. Yet even so, God will not fully destroy the people or their land.

First Reading (Track Two): Exodus 32:7-14

When Moses traveled up to the cloudy top of Mount Sinai, the people left below were afraid. In their fear, they created a golden calf and worshiped it as an idol. At the beginning of Sunday’s reading, God is righteously angry, wrathfully deciding to kill all these ungrateful people and start over again. This new nation, God declares, will no longer descend from Abraham but from the offspring of Moses. But Moses pushes back against this idea. When Moses reminds God of the covenant made at Sinai with Abraham’s family, followed by their long journey out of Egypt, God shows mercy and relents.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 14

Psalm 14 resonates with Jeremiah’s vision of God’s impatient anger with a troublesome people. Jeremiah’s angry words about the people’s stupidity and foolishness are repeated in the Psalmist’s scorn for fools, corrupt people, and doers of abominable deeds. Yet at the end, the Psalm offers hope: God will ultimately restore the people’s fortunes amid gladness and rejoicing.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 51: 1-10

This portion of Psalm 10 imagines the guilt and shame felt by King David after he had sent his loyal soldier Uriah to certain death in battle in order to cover up David’s adulterous affair with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. This Psalm imagines David’s repentant cry when the prophet Nathan shocked the king into recognizing his great sin.

Second Reading: 1 Timothy 1:12-17

During the rest of September, we’ll read from the two short letters of Timothy. Although they are framed as letters of pastoral advice written by Paul to his associate Timothy, modern scholars have concluded they were actually written by a later Christian leader in Paul’s name. Composed in a time when the early church was becoming institutionalized and cautious, they tend to be more strict and dogmatic than Paul’s early letters. We don’t hear that in this passage, though. The writer gives thanks that God forgave Paul’s blasphemy, persecution, and violence, and showered him with Christ’s faith and love.

Gospel: Luke 15:1-10

The Pharisees and the scribes grumbled and complained that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” This complaint prompts Jesus to respond with two brief parables that liken God’s care for “sinners” to people who lose important things: a sheep from a flock and a silver coin. When the lost objects are found after an intense search, the people exult with abundant joy and thanksgiving. “Just so, I tell you,” Jesus concludes, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.”

Illuminations on the Lectionary readings for Sept. 7, 2025 (Pentecost 13C/Proper 18)

Christ Before the People (1837-1857), oil painting on canvas by Alexander Ivanov (1806-1858). Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Jeremiah 18:1-11

Sunday’s readings prompt us to reflect on our assumptions about God’s role in the universe and Jesus’s image as the gentle Good Shepherd. In the Track One first reading, God sends Jeremiah to watch an artisan – a creator who fashions pots from clay – who does not hesitate to smash and re-make an unsatisfactory creation over and over again. If the people of Judah do not turn from their evil ways, Jeremiah hears, then God, like a cosmic potter, will create disaster for them. However, that God – the cosmic potter – tries creation over and over again. Even when humanity goes wrong, the possibility of repentance and restoration remains.

First Reading (Track Two): Deuteronomy 30:15-20

After wandering 40 years in the desert, the Israelites reach the River Jordan at last and are preparing to cross into the Promised Land. Before they make this long-awaited crossing, they pause while Moses reminds them of the covenant they made at Mount Sinai: Love God and walk in God’s ways, follow God’s laws, and you will thrive and prosper. But turn away from God, and you will lose the land and God’s blessings. This simple call to follow God’s way lies at the center of Scripture, and it shapes Jesus’ message to us as well.

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17

God knows us as intimately as Jeremiah’s potter knows his clay. Whatever we do, wherever we go, God knows our every thought, the Psalmist sings. God knows every word that we speak and every idea that we imagine. Even before we were born, God knew us. The Psalmist, however, does not explicitly thank God for knowing our every moment, nor do these verses ask how this knowledge affects our daily lives. No, the simple fact that God knows us so deeply is enough.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 1

Psalm 1, the first of the 150 ancient hymns that make up the Psalms, echoes Moses’ theme at the banks of Jordan: The world is made up of two kinds of people, those who follow God’s laws and those who do not. Follow God’s laws and be happy and prosper; follow the way of the wicked and perish. Scripture is far more nuanced than this black-and-white understanding, of course. Still, “follow God’s ways and win, follow evil ways and lose,” concisely sums up the Covenant that Moses made with God for the people at Mount Sinai.

Second Reading: Philemon 1-21

Paul, having befriended young Onesimus, a slave, in prison, writes a letter about the youth to the slave’s master, Philemon. We might wish that Paul had taken a strong stand against slavery, offering clear guidance on this evil practice that would ring through the ages. But read it closely, and we see that Paul is gently guiding Philemon to a deeper truth: Christians should love each other as brothers and sisters. There is no space for slavery in that!

Gospel: Luke 14:25-33

Tension is rising as Jesus continues his journey toward Jerusalem and the cross. The crowds that have been following him since he set his face toward Jerusalem are growing larger and more excited. Meanwhile, the Romans and the Temple authorities are growing nervous about this unruly crowd descending on the capital at Passover. Jesus needs the crowd to know that it will not be easy to follow him on this journey, just as he had warned them earlier that he came not to bring peace but division. Does he really mean that we have to hate our families and give up everything we have to follow him? Is Jesus just exaggerating to make his point? This much is sure: Jesus is warning his followers not to start a task that they can’t finish. They must follow him not halfheartedly but with whole hearts.

Illuminations on the Lectionary readings for Aug. 31, 2025 (Pentecost 12C/Proper 17)

Parable of the Great Banquet (c.1525-1545), oil painting on panel by the Brunswick Monogrammist, an anonymous 16th-century Dutch painter. National Museum in Warsaw, Poland. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading (Track One): Jeremiah 2:4-13

When we place our own interest first, we lose sight of God’s way. Listen for this theme through Sunday’s readings. In our Track One first reading, we see Jeremiah, reassured that his youth is no bar to being a prophet, stepping into the role. Speaking God’s words aloud to humanity, he cries out in an anguished reverie, lamenting how the chosen people could have gone astray. Did they find some wrong in God that led them to waste their lives on worthless things? More in sorrow than in anger, it seems, God reflects that the people have forsaken the living water that they were given, building cracked cisterns instead that won’t hold what the people need to slake their spiritual thirst.

First Reading (Track Two): Sirach 10:12-18

Sirach, or The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach to give its full name, is one of the group of books known as Apocrypha that come at the end of the Hebrew Bible. It sums up Torah, God’s teaching, in the genre of wisdom literature: brisk, memorable suggestions of spiritual advice. Sunday’s Track Two first reading from Sirach follows the theme of the day’s readings: Pride leads to sin, and sin leads to no good end. In language that may remind us of the Song of Mary, the Magnificat, it warns that proud rulers will be overthrown, to be replaced by the lowly.

Alternate First Reading (Track Two): Proverbs 25:6-7

When Jesus offered his simple wisdom to banquet-goers that we hear in Sunday’s Gospel, perhaps he remembered this simple, ancient wisdom in Sunday’s alternate first reading from Proverbs: “It is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” Both Luke and Matthew sum up this idea in almost identical words, “… all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Psalm (Track One): Psalm 81:1,10-16

The theme of this hymn seems to flow naturally from today’s Jeremiah reading. The Psalmist shouts in joy for God’s strength, and like Jeremiah, imagines God speaking of having brought the people out of slavery in Egypt. God saw to it that they were fed and protected, only to see their stubborn hearts turn to their own ways and ignore God’s commands. Imagining God’s voice, the Psalmist laments, “O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!”

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 112

Understood in the context of today’s lessons, the point in this Psalm is clear, and it clearly restates God’s covenant with the people: Follow God’s commandments and be blessed, and remember that the sum of that commandment is to be righteous and just, serve your neighbor, share your wealth, and provide for the poor. Secure in God, there is no need to live in fear.

Second Reading: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Our four-week visit with the letter to the Hebrews concludes Sunday in beautiful poetic words urging us to love one another as God loves us. We must remember to do good, to share with one another, and to show hospitality, remembering that the patriarch Abraham once hospitably yet unknowingly received visiting angels. These verses offer simple advice on living as God would have us live. Keep our lives free from the love of money, and be content with what we have, for God will never leave us or forsake us.

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14

Like so many of Jesus’s parables, this one seems to have an obvious, simple message … and then a sudden turn makes us stop and think. Don’t assume that the seat of honor is saved for you, Jesus tells the Pharisees at a banquet table, or you’ll be embarrassed when the host directs you to move down. It’s more prudent to take a humble place, then bask in a happy glow as the host escorts you to a better place. But then we find, as we so often do with Jesus’ teachings, that there’s a deeper meaning: Next time, don’t host a banquet for wealthy, influential people at all. Rather, host one for hungry, thirsty, ill, and oppressed people. They can’t repay you as rich friends might, but your reward will be plentiful when God’s kingdom comes.