1. -- Lanie LeBlanc OP -
2. -- Dennis Keller OP -
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5. --(Your reflection can be here!)

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Blessings,

Dr. Lanie LeBlanc OP

Southern Dominican Laity

lanie@leblanc.one

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Twenty Fifth Sunday of Ordered Time

September 21, 2025

Amos 8:4-7; Responsorial Psalm 113; 1^st Timothy 2:1-8; Gospel Acclamation 2^nd Corinthians 8:9; Luke 16:1-13

It’s no wonder the Sadducees, the chief Priests, and the Roman government/military were looking for ways to get rid of this radical, this Jesus. Let’s take a look at the first reading. Amos is one of the minor prophets. His call from God took him from his home and his life’s work as a shepherd and a trimmer of sycamores. Do we have an idea of what a shepherd’s life is like: but a trimmer of sycamores? American sycamores are trees that like and need a lot of moisture to grow tall and wide. The middle eastern sycamore produced a fruit that was abundant. But it needed to be trimmed before it matured so as to be eatable. It was not a prized fruit, so those with financial means didn’t bother with it. Adding insult to injury, Amos was called by God to prophesize in the northern Kingdom, then called Israel. There was bad blood between Juda and Israel. Automatically Amos would not be well received. Add to that his message! No wonder leadership and populace told him in no uncertain terms to go home and prophesize there. In this reading, Amos is pointing out the dishonesty and hypocrisy of merchants and leadership. If we listen carefully we understand from our experiences the cheating and fraud going on. As we listen, we need to ask ourselves, is he talking to us? Do we cheat the uninformed, the poor, those without sufficient means to eat, be educated, to be clothed and housed? Do we levy tax burdens by way of fees and taxes on necessities in order to benefit the wealthy? That’s Amos’ message to us.

The second reading is problematic as well. Writing to Timothy, Paul insists we must pray for leadership. This is no easy task in Paul’s time. Persecutions of followers of Jesus, the “people of the Light” were common. Those who walked in the light of the Lord are those who do not accept the standards and values of the world. Accumulation, honors, abuse of poor and minorities be damned.

We must still pray for our leadership, civil, representative, autocratic, and as well religious leadership, who do not share in our faith tradition. How awful to think we must cross partisan allegiances to pray for those whose actions and values are contradictory to our own. The Christian writers of the first couple of centuries after Jesus were insistent that even Nero, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Vespasian, Hadrian, and Decius must be prayed for. In our recent centuries and currently there remain leadership who are contrary to all that the Children of the Light hold dear. Yes, we are to pray for them as well.

In the gospel reading, we have a mysterious reading. It sounds like Jesus is praising a crook. Even worse, it seems the leader there is a crook as well as the master knows the conniving of the steward and praises him for his clever manipulations. Is Jesus saying that’s okay? There is no indication of such approval. Instead, Jesus makes a comment: would that the Children of the Light were as committed and crafty as the children of the darkness. The first question for us then is this: how do we live our lives: is our secular facing life that of the children of the darkness or that of the Children of the Light? The second question is how do we cement our relationships with real and permanent values? In the Kingdom of God man’s wealth is about what we give away, not what we heap up in barns that someone else will inherit. A third question to ask ourselves is about the quality of life of those we encounter. Is our association and contact making the lives of others of higher quality? Possessions are not sinful! But possessions carry a great responsibility and challenge our hearts by how we think of them.

A fourth question has to do with how we complete our work, our roles as parents, teachers, business leaders, religious leaders. If we ignore the details, if we rush through half completing duties/responsibilities, who will trust us with greater responsibilities? A final question is to calculate who our master is. Is it mammon the purpose of our work, our affections, our relationships? Mammon is the illusionary secular goal that lacks permanency. We leave the goals of Mammon behind when we leave this world. We take with us what we’ve become through our living, our work, our relationships.

These readings are truly awful. The intention is so contrary to secularism, consumerism, materialism, and even some elements of capitalism. The world doesn’t run on the light brought by Jesus.

Is it any wonder that religious and civil leadership could not allow him or his message to continue? Some may say that the progress experienced in the world would not have taken place had Jesus had his way. Jesus did have his way. In every age there have been men and women who have shed their blood, lost all their possessions, been deprived of every privilege and every dignity and worth that Christians believe is God’s gift to every person who lives.

It has been said by great thinkers and leaders that the progress of the world has always been at the cost of the blood of people of principle and conviction.

As Christians we are really revolutionaries. We don’t use guns, and IED’s. Nor nuclear weaponry or intrigue. In the end it is recognition of the worth and dignity of others that brings us to believe in a God who is not interested in revenge. This God sent his Son so that we might be reconciled and that we may look on what causes us to lose our way. The Cross remains our reminder of what the way of the world does to us.

Dennis Keller Dennis@PreacherExchange.com

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Volume 2 is for you. These reflections follow the Liturgical Calendar and appear here about mid week each week.  They are written by various guest authors.  If you would like to submit a reflection of your own, then click here to send an email request to post to the Webmaster.  Deadline is Monday of each week for the upcoming Sunday.

VOLUME II ARCHIVE

• 25th Sunday •
• Exaltation of the Holy Cross •

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