Twenty-fifth Sunday on Ordinary Time, September 21, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Come Lord Jesus (now)
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
 and destroy the poor of the land!
Watching the Illini lose badly to the Indiana Hoosiers tonight was terribly depressing, so with the game minimized (it never got better) we watched a black and white movie from 1945, Confidential Agent, where the hero gets misunderstood, beaten and robbed before the story bends its bow toward justice. We didn’t watch it all, so I’m just assuming that justice thing. The last scene we saw halfway through the film showed London from the air on a clear day. I think that’s hopeful.
Pastor Matt sent us a note this week encouraging us in the midst of so much bad news:
On the very same day Charlie Kirk, a young husband and father, was assassinated in front of our eyes, there was yet another school shooting in Colorado. Two days before that, many of us saw Iryna Zarutska, who fled her war-torn country for safety in ours, have her life stolen on public transit. We saw the report of the murder of children attending Catholic mass, we hear of the violence in our own city of Austin, and we know there are heinous acts committed daily around the world without a camera present.
There is too much evil.
After inviting us to join him in a one-day fast, Matt shared a passage he asked us to read slowly, over and over, “letting each word from the Holy Spirit saturate your heart so it may be a true encouragement.”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  – 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 …
In Christ forever and always … Come Lord Jesus, (now),
Matt
On Friday Margaret and the boys traveled by Amtrak to McGregor, Texas while I drove there to pick them up after their railroad adventure. In her wonderful way Margaret struck up a conversation with the conductor. “Do you like your job, sir?” He looked a little pained.
“Let me change the question. How many days till you retire?” Then he perked up. Turns out he keeps his Amtrak job for the insurance, since his wife is enduring terminal stage 4 cancer. Both of them are toughing it out these days, but they depend on Jesus in ways they never dreamed of before. Talking with Margaret made a difference in his day, and I would bet that he shares the story with his wife. Plus, Miles and Jasper got to hear the conversation.
Who is like the LORD, our God, who is enthroned on high
 and looks upon the heavens and the earth below?
In Austin the temperature hasn’t crested below 95 for several weeks. Nevertheless, every day all day there are folks at intersections we pass through with signs asking for help. I am getting to know some of their faces, and often we pull a $5 bill out of our glove compartment’s stash to share with them. Last week at P Terry’s, a famous but local burger chain, we had lunch on the way to a free day at UT Austin’s Blanton Art Museum. As we were driving out of the parking lot, a man (or woman) dressed in several layers of clothing and a heavy hat pushed a shopping cart along the sidewalk.
We could only watch. Much of the more modern art at Blanton, especially an exhibit of Latin American paintings, reflected pain and poverty, but also determination and faith.
Often it is said that no one moves very far toward God except through suffering. Only through suffering can I shed my false comfortable dependence on ego and success and at last experience true surrender to God, who made me and knows me.
Make friends with yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
In Jesus’ parable about the wise manager in Luke 16 he doesn’t say “if.” He says, “when.”
If you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth,
who will trust you with true wealth?
If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another,
who will give you what is yours?
No servant can serve two masters.
Jesus’ letter to his children recounted in the Newer Testament is the source of Pastor Matt’s compassion and confidence in our mutual Father. It also predicts, as for example in this parable, our suffering on the journey. All of us fall short of the glory of God, and in the end we are poverty-stricken, one unpredictable day or the next.
And that’s a good thing. It’s the only way forward.
He raises up the lowly from the dust;
 from the dunghill he lifts up the poor
to seat them with princes,
 with the princes of his own people.
High above all nations is the Lord;
Above the heavens is his glory.
(Amos 8, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2, 2 Corinthians 8, Luke 16)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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