Lk 18:35-19:28: 21st Sunday after Pentecost Jesus concluded the twinned teaching of Lk 18:1-14 (the last two Sunday’s readings) by reiterating his pronouncement from 14:11: “The exalted will be brought down, and the humbled lifted up” (18:14b). This both looks back to Mary’s Magnificat (1:52), and forward to this Sunday’s gospel: the story of Zacchaeus…
And Honoring Two Departed Saints; 20th Sunday after Pentecost, 2025 The parable that follows the Persistent Woman and the Unjust Judge similarly indicts elites (Lk 18:9–14), this time targeting those who justify their privilege with religious presumption and disguise their predatory power with public piety. It thus strikes closer to home for those of us…
I love how this parable disrupts our still heavily male-focused culture by celebrating and centering the agency of women—thus my subtitle “Hersistence”! There is so much in which to delight in this story of the tenacious prayer and public resistance of this unnamed protagonist, who is truly a great ancestor of women’s personal and political…
And Re-introducing Two Timely BCM Publications18th Sunday after Pentecost This Sunday’s RCL gospel reading (Lk 17:11-19) is a straightforward object lesson about gratitude for gifts of healing. It is an important reminder for those of us trying to face and heal deep wounds past and present, not least in this fraught historical moment. As we…
17th Sunday after Pentecost (10/5/25): Lk 17:5-10 This week’s blog will be brief, as the next two Sundays call on texts in Lk 17 which I don’t really exposit in HARP. However, the RCL gospel for this week has a key connection to Luke’s narrative of Sabbath Economics. The famous “mustard seed faith” saying promises…
16th Sunday after Pentecost (9/28/25): (Lk 16:19-31) Ten years ago, our Communications Coordinator Chris Wight taught me the acronym “TL;DR”—“too long; didn’t read.” As a writer who tends toward (and is admittedly constrained by) longer-form reflection, I’ve always found that a bit snarky. But I also understand that in a world inundated by all manner…
15th Sunday after Pentecost (9/21/25): (Lk 16:1-14) First things first. Bill Johnson, Baptist servant leader, friend, and loving spouse of our board member Carter Echols (right), passed away on Sept 13. His short time of hospice brought a gracious end to their brave decade-long struggle with Bill’s cancer. Please hold their family in God’s Light…
In the wake of the challenging teachings of chapter 14, Luke’s story resets, with Jesus’s audience increasingly polarized between “tax collectors and sinners coming near to listen” and “Pharisees and scribes grumbling”
The tension introduced in the first three parts of this exploration are “resolved” in the fourth, which I examine here, looking at Luke’s repeated key phrases: “those who were invited” and “the poor, disabled and blind”, which represent the “flipped script” of the parable.
This entire sequence of Luke 14:1-24, taken whole, turns the world of prestige upside down, and invites us to examine just how we all tend to play, aspire to play, or tolerate social games of ladder-climbing.