The gospel reading for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, from Luke 12, has two distinct elements. The first is an extraordinary encouragement given to Jesus’ disciples to invest their lives and resources in the mission of proclaiming and embodying God’s reign on earth. Jesus gives them a paradoxical image of God as a bridgegroom who returns from his wedding banquet to serve his slaves: a remarkable reversal of our normal expectations of how a life of privilege and power is lived out. The self-giving God, who calls his disciples to pass on the generosity that sustains us to others. This is followed by a warning about accountability: the more we have received from God, the more responsibiilty we carry for what we do with it.
You can listen to my comments on the text here…
Howard Pilgrim