From the Lectionary for 28 September 2025 (Proper 21C)

Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV Updated Edition)

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

~

"If we were to use a modern tale that fits, I would suggest Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It helps to bring out the fictional aspect of the parable. Because Dickens told this moving tale, we don't now believe in ghosts, nor that they forge chains in life by neglect of the poor. Because Jesus tells this parable, though, many people somehow come to believe that he is giving us a true picture of the afterlife. No, just as for Dickens, Jesus tells us a story of the future afterlife not to give us a true picture of that life but rather to move us to different choices in the present life."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from 'Reflections and Questions' on Luke 16:19-31 (link in comments below)

~

"It is very like a well-known folk tale in the ancient world; Jesus was by no means the first to tell of how wealth and poverty might be reversed in the future life. In fact, stories like this were so well known that we can see how Jesus has changed the pattern that people would expect. In the usual story, when someone asks permission to send a message back to the people who are still alive on earth, the permission is granted. Here, it isn't; and the sharp ending of the story points beyond itself to all sorts of questions that Jesus' hearers, and Luke's readers, were urged to face.

"The parable is not primarily a moral tale about riches and poverty - though, in this chapter, it should be heard in that way as well. If that's all it was, some might say that it was better to let the poor stay poor, since they will have a good time in the future life. That sort of argument has been used too often by the careless rich for us to want anything to do with it. No; there is something more going on here. The story, after all, doesn't add anything new to the general folk belief about fortunes being reversed in a future life. If it's a parable, that means once again that we should take it as picture-language about something that was going on in Jesus' own work.

"The ending gives us a clue, picking up where, a chapter earlier, the story of the father and his two sons had ended. ‘Neither will they be convinced, even if someone were to rise from the dead'; ‘this your brother was dead, and is alive again.’ The older brother in the earlier story is very like the rich man in this: both want to keep the poor, ragged brother or neighbour out of sight and out of mind. Jesus, we recall, has been criticized for welcoming outcasts and sinners; now it appears that what he's doing is putting into practice in the present world what, it was widely believed, would happen in the future one. ‘On earth as it is in heaven’ remains his watchword. The age to come must be anticipated in the present."

- N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pp. 200-01

~

"...[T]he divide between Lazarus and the Rich Man remains the final motif. “Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” The essential point is that the rich man is the one who creates the divide, so that those on Abraham's side of the chasm who “might want to pass” (i.e. act out of compassion) in fact cannot. The text clearly implies that the rich and privileged, those with status, create the divide, not God. Thus the parable is not a picture of medieval hell but of humanly created alienation and its suffering. Again the way to the kingdom is through our relationships with others, forgiveness, and care for the poor. What we do in this world constructs the way we relate to God's kingdom."

- Anthony Bartlett, Seven Stories, pp. 90-91

~

"What I'd like to do is to bring out something very surprising about these three parables, which is how much they have in common and how much perhaps they were originally intended to be read together. It's one of the things I think we'll notice as we work through today's [reading] is to see how how often it refers back to things in the previous two parables, that's the one usually called The Prodigal Son and the one usually called The Unjust Steward. And curiously, one of the hidden but real presences there is the notion of stewardship. Just last Sunday remember the whole question was how did the steward exercise his stewardship. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the first son having managed to [...] squander his inheritance and then sought to come back on the same terms of reference as if he were a hard servant, so being like a steward, whereas the eldest son had acted like a steward rather than like a son, didn't seem to have realized that everything that he had was his. And as we'll see today a rather surprising steward turns up in in this week's in this week's gospel.

[...]

"Now we're used to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, so we're used to the name Lazarus, but if we were to listen to the story in Hebrew or Aramaic he would be called Eliezar. [...] It says he was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. Why? Well, because Eliezar was Abraham's steward. In [Genesis 15] Abraham, before he gets any children, he complained to God saying listen I've got no one to leave my household to except my steward Eliezar, he's the nearest thing to an heir, a descendant, I've got so everything's going to be his. And God says, don't worry you'll get a descendants. [...] And then of course also the steward is sent out again to help Isaac get a wife. [...] So Abraham's steward [is] an angelic figure and indeed was taken to be a such in Jewish popular tales of the time. [...] So strangely what we have here is there has been an angel at the rich man's door without him being aware of it, and has been carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.

[...]

"I think there's something even more subtle going on here. The sign, something happening, a dead man being raised, does not help you interpret the prophets and the law. Eliezar, as the poor man, that angelic presence, was already a hint of how you need to interpret the prophets and the law, from the position of the cast-out one. And of course it's only when Jesus is himself cast out and rises from the dead that he becomes, not simply, if you like, the fact of someone having risen, thereby shocking people into behaving, but actually the living interpretative principle of the law and the prophets, by which it might become possible for them to learn how to notice and respect and love the Lazaruses, the stewards of the Lord, who are sent and given to us as reminders of how real communication is created in this life when we learn to reach outside and beyond ourselves, and allow ourselves to be formed and transformed by the victims, the marginalized, the precarious in our midst."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6X-D8UUyGs)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein, N.T. Wright and Anthony Bartlett quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper21c/]

From the Lectionary for 21 September 2025 (Proper 20C)

Amos 8:4-6 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
    and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, “When will the new moon be over
    so that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath,
    so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier
    and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

Luke 16:1-13 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

~

"Speaking to the Jewish leaders in Luke 15, Jesus uses unconventional figures to stretch their imagination toward forgiveness. Speaking to his disciples in Luke 16, Jesus now chooses more conventional characters who continue to live by the rules of debt-keeping according to ‘this present age.’ The rich man is not a stand-in for God, as the Prodigal Father is in Luke 15. No, this parable now plops us in the too-familiar setting of oppressive economics that yields a divide between rich and poor, and a few mid-level managers (stewards) in-between.

"We are not given the details, but this particular manager is not performing up to par and so he's fired, commanded to give a final accounting of his job-results. It is under these standard conditions of injustice - the conditions of this age - that the manager awakes to the light of debt-forgiving as alternative to the conventional world of debt-keeping. About to be demoted to the status of the oppressed, he at least acts to make friends among the oppressed. Even his master can see the wisdom of this and commends him. With nothing more to lose, the manager has made gains within his new community among the poor workers of the master's land."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from Opening Comments on the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 20C (link in comments below)

~

"It is crucial, I believe, how one translates 'adikias' in vv. 8 & 9 - translated as “dishonest” in the NRSV and “unjust” (v. 8), “unrighteous” (v. 9) in the KJV. And it is used to modify a different noun in each verse. NRSV: “dishonest manager” in v. 8, and “dishonest wealth” in v. 9 KJV: “unjust steward” in v. 8, and “the mammon of unrighteousness” in v. 9 (which reflects the genitive construction in the Greek; more below).

"Many commentators in the English language go consistently with “dishonest” and base their arguments around that rendering. But there are potentially misleading aspects to not noting the possible variances in translating adikias - the singularity, in fact, of translating it as “dishonest.”

"First, I think it is important to know that the word in these verses is related to the crucial NT word group around the root dik: dikaioō, to justify, make right; dikaiosunē, righteousness, justice; dikaiōsis, justification, vindication. [...] I would argue that translating adikias as “unjust” or “unrighteous” is a choice more consistent with the rest of the NT.

[...]

"Let’s be honest: “dishonest” has very different connotations than “unjust.” “Honesty” is a very different thing than “justice.” For me, “dishonest” reflects primarily on the trustworthiness of individuals, whereas “unjust” is often used of systemic fairness. This makes a bigger difference in vs. 9 when paired with “mammon.” “Dishonest mammon” would generally involve a dishonest person. A dishonest person taints the wealth. “Unjust mammon,” on the other hand, could involve a person who seeks justice, but the wealth involved is still trapped in systemic injustice, tainted by the system."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from Exegetical Note #3 on Luke 16:1-13, on the Girardian Lectionary page for Proper 20C (link in comments below)

~

In his video homily for this week's lectionary (excerpt and link below), James Alison argues that the main context for this parable is usury, which was against Jewish law but which many lenders of goods found ways around to extract interest.  In particular, apparently the "going rate" in the time of Jesus for lending of olive oil was 100% interest (hence a loan of 50 jugs would require repayment of 100), and the rate for wheat was 25% (hence a loan of 80 containers would require repayment of 100).  If this is the case, what the 'shrewd' manager has done for the debtors is just to remove from their bill the 'unjust' interest they were being charged.

~

"Now again the phrase “dishonest wealth,” it's quite quite technical, dishonest wealth refers to that bit of the wealth which was dishonestly acquired, in other words the extra 25% in the case of the wheat or the extra 100% in the case of the oil. That was the dishonest bit. So [Jesus is] saying, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth: if you've got something that is dishonest, use it to make friends. That's the recommendation. If something has come to you dishonestly, you can't use it for yourself because that would be to confirm its dishonesty, you would be entering into the dishonesty of the thing. But you can use that which is of morally dubious status to do things for other people. And that's a way of making things good. [...]

"“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” Now, interestingly, our dishonest servant turns out to have been faithful in his dishonesty. [...] Remember this. The next line then says, “If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you true riches?” Remember our servant was faithful with the dishonest wealth, he took the dishonest wealth and made things right with God by not charging usury, gave his boss a good reputation, and made friends. [...]

"“And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another who will give you what is your own?” Okay, now that comes back to all of us. Anything that we have is what we have been given. If we make things dishonestly, then, with just the little things that we can add on, then we'll be dishonest with everything. But if, starting with something which 'someone' has given us, like a rich master, we are then able to turn potentially dishonest things into something honest, we will be able to be given much much more.

"“If you have not been faithful with what belongs to another who will give you what is your own?” In other words, the notion is that we start having to learn how to be really shrewd in working out how not to be exploitative but how to make sense of what has been given to us, in order to put us in the position of receiving more. The more we give away the more we'll get, this is absolutely the pattern of desire which comes through in Luke's gospel.

"“No slave can serve two masters, he will either hate the one and love the other or will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” In other words the law of God, remember, is against usury, it's greatly in favor of generosity. And here the words love and hate in the first verse and then it says devoted and despise. Actually the word for devoted is “cleave” and the word for despise is the word used very frequently of those who reject God. So these are the words referring “cleave to God” or “despising God.” So what is he saying here? He's saying the true Master the one who gives you absolutely everything, is God, and if you cleave to him you will find out ways of making things which are apparently dishonest into honest things, which can do you good. Or you'll find yourself actually being really interested only in the financial outcome, in which case you will pursue dishonesty and you will make yourself dishonest.

"In other words, it's what's coming upon you that is really the question of your riches, not what you start with. What you start with of course is that which enables you to open up to what is coming upon you. If what is coming upon you is from God then you'll be able to grow in generosity. If what is coming upon you is for money then you will be a slave to it and it will run your life. That seems to me to be what is being said in today's Gospel."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH22kSULodE)

[Source of Paul Nuechterlein quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper20c/]

From the Lectionary for 14 September 2025 (Proper 19C)

Luke 15:1-10 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable: “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? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

[Note: The Roman Catholic lectionary for Proper 19C includes verses 11-32, the so-called "Parable of the Prodigal Son."]

~

"I'd like to submit to you today that that is always the most essential act of repentance: namely, that we would change our minds about who God is. This is the first step, the key, to total repentance. In order to have one's whole life changed, I think that the first step is always to first have our minds changed about who God is.

"We need to know to the bottom of our hearts that the true God has always been a merciful God. It is we human beings who make God out to be someone else, to be a punishing, wrathful, violent God. It is we who are wrong about God and need to change our minds. Isn't that the very heart of the Christian Gospel? That through Jesus Christ we most truly get to see who God is?"

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from a sermon delivered on 30 September 1995 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper19c_1995_ser/)

~

"The first thing is Luke frames them very clearly. “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying: this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So that's the background: Jesus is talking to a mixed group as so often of those who are normally regarded as bad, and maybe for good reasons, and those who think of themselves at least and maybe are officially appointed to be good and sometimes for good reasons.

"But what he's wanting to do in his answers is to completely alter the nature of their conversation about good and bad, and introduce something entirely different - the note of joy which is at the heart of the Gospel. Because each one of these three parables ends with the demand for a party, and ends with the demand for joy because anything to do with God ultimately is to do with joy."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (link below)

~

"A man with 100 -1 sheep cannot rest before he has restored the number to 100; the woman with 10 -1 coins is compelled to search until they are ten again; the man who had 2-1 sons cannot find joy until the missing one returns and they are two again. What is it, the meaning of this riddle?

"Clearly the numbers are important; each riddle puts them first, “There was a man who had 100 sheep” (vs. 4), a “woman who had ten coins” (vs. 8), “a man who had two sons” (vs. 11). Is this a clue? Yes it is! The riddle invites us to think about sets that are broken: the set of 100 is now 99, the set of 10 is nine and the set of 2 is 1. In each case there is something missing and the hole it leaves cries out to be filled.

[...]

"It now occurs to me that the Hebrew word “shalom” which is still the accepted greeting in Hebrew, cognate with the Arabic “salaam,” means “wholeness” before it comes to mean “peace.” This discloses that peace in our tradition means communal wholeness, and when I greet you with “shalom” I am saying, “I recognize you as part of the whole to which we both belong, and so there should be no rivalry between us. The Hebrew for “righteousness” (tzedakah) is another word for the state of “shalom,” that is, having been reintegrated after having been expelled. The “righteous” person is one who is in good standing with the community. The duty of the judge is to find ways to bring someone who, because of his deeds, has expelled himself from the community, back in.

"The Apostle Paul calls the work of God in Christ the “justification of sinners,” which means the restoring of those cast out, to standing in the community. For this reason he can say that those who believe in Christ and thus allow him to rectify (justify) their good standing in the human community, beyond the distinctions of religion, class and gender, are all one in their common humanity. Thus the healing of the violence-wracked world goes through the expelled and then reintegrated scapegoat – the social outcasts, the scoundrel sons, the smelly goats and the politely unacceptable. These are the ones God's kingdom desires most. [...]

"Note that the reintegration takes place before the outcasts are worthy of being welcomed back. Repentance is the decision to return, like the lost son, in order to be changed and restored by membership in the group. One does not change so as to re-enter the group; one re-enters the group in order to change. This is the very meaning of grace- the acceptance of the unacceptable. If it were otherwise it would not be grace but justice, not a gift but just desserts."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from sermon delivered on September 12, 2010 (source no longer available online)

~

"One does not change so as to re-enter the group; one re-enters the group in order to change." I would like to add that when one who is lost or outcast re-enters or is welcomed back into, the group, the group also changes. In Marilynne Robinson's novel Home, the returned 'prodigal son' sadly does not get the full, unequivocal, unconditional welcome of his father. And one of the main reasons for this, I think, is that the father, and to a large extent the rest of the family and their home community, are not willing to accept the unconventional and unsettling reality of the son. They are not willing to expand their horizons and to say that this one, too, is one of us, and belongs with us, because to do so would mean admitting that the 'us' as we define it is incomplete, limited, imperfect. The 'us' cannot truly receive the prodigal without a transformed vision and enactment of 'belonging'.

~

"[The] two small parables act as a very well-coded introduction to the longer one, and by well-coded I mean they're saying something about God as well because each one of the images is quite familiar to Jesus's audience. First of all the shepherd of Israel to whom many of the psalms are addressed, or "shepherd of Israel, hear us". Here is the shepherd of Israel saying what the activity of the shepherd of Israel looks like. The activity of the shepherd of Israel looks like going and finding a reason for rejoicing.

"And in the second story, we have the business of the ten silver coins. The most common reason why a woman might have ten silver coins is the dowry, it would be the sign of her ability to get married or indeed to have been married; [incorporated as] either as a bracelet or as a necklace, it would be a very important part of her life. It wasn't simply a that she was a numismatist and collected coins - no, these were a significant part of her bridal meaning. So what's happening? She's lost part of her bridal meaning and she goes and looks and finds it and rejoices. But what sort of rejoicing is this? - Israel the bride is rejoicing because the possibility of marriage comes alive again - the promise of marriage comes to fruition with Israel as the bride of God.

"And that's when we turn to the third of the parables - the one with only two people who might be lost or found: from 99 to 1, to 9 to 1, to one to one - two. And this is the key thing. And who is the representative figure for God here? Well, it's the one who I refer to as the self-effacing father because now that Jesus is coming down from mighty images to images of one to one, he brings out something astounding that rather than God being the judge between people who are good and bad, that God is a self-effacing father who never puts himself at a level above the two brothers. In fact, [he] effaces himself in the presence of the brothers so as to make it possible, if at all possible, for them to come together in common rejoicing.

[...]

"[T]he father says to [the older brother]: child - 'teknon' - you are always with me. He uses the word 'teknon', not son, as in our translation; it's a tender word but it's not the same as son, I think probably because it refers to the whole of Israel. And, “all that is mine is yours.” In other words, when we divided the property at the beginning I gave one-third to your brother and two-thirds to you, it's been yours all along. We've had it together, it's been yours to give and use. Your brother used it [dissolutely], you have used it in a withholding way. And you've used that to project yourself as better than your brother. But all that is mine is yours. “But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours” - [he] doesn't refer to him as my son - “this brother of yours was dead and has come to life. He was lost and has been found.”

"The great rejoicing. The self-effacing father doesn't want to get in the picture at all. His rejoicing consists in brothers separated by views of superiority, jealousy, moral differences, getting over all that, and coming to meet each other and rejoice. And what are we asked to do but to understand from Jesus that God is a great rejoicing. If only we can imagine that we can let go of our self-importance, our fear, our need to jump through hoops, and all that other stuff, and start to enter into the great rejoicing."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myI3tJbCbvw)

[Source of link to Paul J. Nuechterlein sermon, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper19c/]

[Luke 15:11-32 (the so-called "Parable of the Prodigal Son") is also in the lectionary for Lent 4C (which I missed this year due to illness). I recommend James Alison's video "Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWg-SNJX9I)]

From the Lectionary for 7 September 2025 (Proper 18C)

Luke 14:25-33 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

~

"The Greek word for “possessions” in vs. 33 is an interesting one. It is a participial noun 'ta hyparchonta', from the verb 'hyparcho', which is a compound word from the words hypo, “under,” archo, “to begin” (the noun 'arche' can also indicate power). It's not even listed in Kittel's TDNT, but the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker lexicon has its most common meaning as: exist (really), be present, be at one's disposal. Things which are at one's disposal are one's possessions or means. BAGD also indicates that in Homeric Greek this word is often used as a substitute for 'einai' (inf.), the “to be” verb. I take it that this “really exist” is an intensive form of “to be.”

- Exegetical note by Paul Nuechterlein on the Girardian Lectionary page for this Sunday (link below)

~

"We could phrase this [...] by saying that the problem is not possessions but possessiveness. God gives us parents, children, siblings, and friends as gifts. Likewise we should give each ourselves as gifts to other people. The things we use in the world are likewise gifts from God and should be treated accordingly.

"The problem comes when we prefer to take other people and things rather than receive them. In such cases, the intensity of love we feel for others is actually possessiveness rather than love. We are told to “hate” parents, children, siblings, and friends so as not to be possessive of them."

- Andrew Marr, Abbot of St. Gregory's Abbey (Three Rivers, MI), from a blog post titled “God's Kingdom as Gift” (https://andrewmarrosb.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/gods-kingdom-as-gift/)

~

"So he's setting this out and then he says: So, therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your - the Greek word here is - I'm just going to get this right - hyparchousin - which can mean possessions but it actually means more: it means 'your being', 'your essence', any advantage you might have, your profit. So it means anything that profiteth, to use nice Jacobite language.

"So therefore none of you can become disciples if you do not give up anything that might give you an advantage: your very being, your possessions - everything. He's saying that the greatest strength, the strength of the Lord and his anointed, the one who is actually going to be able to fulfil the building of the new tower, is the one who is treated as nought by family, friends and children, and has lost all the things that hold him or her in being.

"This is a tremendously, as you can imagine, difficult teaching, saying: If you want to follow me, it's not a question of ‘I demand that you engage in pseudo-masochistic exercises’; it's that any leverage that gives you being now is going to get in the way of your being weak enough to conquer all these forces."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYIvDVIem8I)

~

"[A] huge part of what Jesus came to do is to show us who God really is, which is ultimately Good News. But it is also challenging as hell, because we evolved with our own ideas of who god is. And they are surprisingly difficult to let go of. Today's challenging Gospel Reading gives us a big clue as to why.

"First, there's that matter of giving up possessions. Our usual human gods are the ones who bless us with good things when we are good and curse us with the loss or absence of good things when we are bad. These gods make sense of the world for us in terms of how we set things up, namely, as rewarding what's deemed as good behavior and punishing what's deemed as bad behavior. When we are deserving, God blesses us with good possessions. That's how our entire society is constructed, right? Working hard and getting what we deserve.

"Second, there's the matter of hating family. The blessing and curse thing works not only for individuals, but also for groups of people, for communities. God blesses or punishes us as a family, or tribe, or nation. God is our God, on our side. We count on our God to keep us safe against our enemies. In an us-and-them world, it is good to have God on our side. “God bless America!” Right?

"Does this God sound familiar? The God who is on our side and blesses us with good things, many possessions? [...] But I have come to believe that Jesus came to divest us of that human-made God and show us who God really is, and it's not that God.

"First, the true God of Jesus is the God of everyone, the God of the whole creation, so there is no us-and-them. There is only us. That's why Jesus said outrageous things like, “Love your enemies.” Because there is no us and them, there is only us. The true God is not the god behind any of the divisions we humans create. The true God is the one behind the oneness of everything, the God bringing all things into harmony through love. So we need to let go of all ideas tied to us-and-them thinking, including our family as separate from anyone else's family. We need to let go of mother and father, sisters and brothers, and receive all human beings as part of God's family, our family.

"And so God also doesn't go around blessing some and cursing others. The promise to Abraham and Sarah right from the beginning is that their family was to be a blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3). It's supposed to be win-win, not win-lose. Again, Jesus makes this clear right from the start by beginning his ministry with the beatitudes in Matthew's Gospel: blessed are the poor, the meek, the grieving; and what we already heard from Luke's Gospel, a blessing to the poor, the sick, the oppressed.

"In short, Jesus is flipping things on us, declaring blessings for those in this world we usually count as cursed. Jesus is teaching us that God doesn't reward the good and punish the bad. We don't receive possessions because we deserve them; we receive them as gifts of God's graciousness. All of life is a gift! Not something to be possessed! So we also need to be able to let go of our possessions as possessions, and to receive them instead as gifts.

[...]

"I think coming to faith in God anew [...] is being able to experience one's possessions, even one's family, as pure gift. It is being able to survive death by being in oneness with all of life — and the ground of all life, God. Jesus, our big brother, came to help us grow-up into that life of grace, a way through the cross to resurrection. It is the experience of “eternal life” here and now because it is the experience of life as pure gift."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from a sermon by delivered on September 4, 2016 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper-18c-sermon-2016/)

[Source of Exegetical Note and links to Andrew Marr and Paul Nuechterlein sermon, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper18c/]