October 2022 – A Preacher’s Ponderings

Salvation has come to this house

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost; 30 October 2022; Proper 26C (RCL); Habakkuk 1:14-, 2:1-4; Psalm 119:137-144; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10.

The story of Zaccheus is a story I remember from Sunday School (I suppose we sang the song about him), but it is a much more complicated story than I remember. It’s the last encounter with someone outside the circle of disciples before Jesus enters Jerusalem. It stands in the same place as the story of Blind Bartimaeus stands in Mark’s Gospel. In that Gospel, Bartimaeus is the only person who follows Jesus “on the way.” In Luke’s Gospel, Zaccheus is the one person who “gets it.”

The days are coming

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 16 October 2022; Proper 24C (RCL); Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5; Luke 18:1-8.

I’ve always thought this parable presented an odd comparison (or contrast) between the unjust judge and God. It is a form of the argument from lesser to greater. If it’s true in this case, imagine how much more true in that case. But the judge’s motivation seems pretty suspect. And our English translation misses the point: the judge says “otherwise, she will wear me out by her continual coming.” In the Greek it says something closer to “lest she give me a black eye by her continual coming.” The issue is honor and shame.

The welfare of the city

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 9 October 2022; Proper 23C (RCL); Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Psalm 66:1-11; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19.

The story of the healing of the ten lepers stands out for several reasons. To get from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus would have had to pass right through Samaria (or skirt it to the west) – there is not region between Samaria and Galilee. So, is Luke just bad a geography, or is he calling our attention to something. Perhaps he is preparing us to encounter the healed Samaritan leper.