Month: September 2025

Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria. Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away (Amos 6:1a, 4–7). After wrestling last week with…

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity [1 Timothy 2:1-2]. What happens when the pursuit of peace collides with the demands of godliness? After four weeks with the prophet Jeremiah and last week’s meditation on Jesus’s parable of the lost sheep (and the lost coin), I turn to the epistle reading from First Timothy [1 Timothy 2:1-7, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year C]. One of the three so-called Pastoral Epistles, this letter addresses young church…

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” – Luke 15:4 [part of the Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday, the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year C]. Jesus posed this question to Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling about his dinner companions—tax collectors and sinners who had drawn near to hear him teach. The religious leaders found his table fellowship scandalous, his choice of company questionable. So Jesus told them a story. As was His practice, He began with a question—essentially, “Which one of…

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him [Jeremiah 18:1-4, from this Sunday’s Old Testament reading, the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year C]. While on my recent pilgrimage to Turkey, in the ancient region of Cappadocia, my fellow sojourners and I encountered a potter’s workshop that seemed to exist outside of…