Gospel

The use of Lazarus-Eleazar (Lazarus, the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Eleazar,”) and Abraham in the parable reminds the Jewish audience of Eleazar of Damascus, Abraham’s chief steward mentioned in Genesis 15:2-3. Eleazar, also a Gentile steward, was initially the heir to Abraham’s estate until Isaac was born. DespiteRead More →

It’s only with the threat of losing his comfortable lifestyle that the steward realises he has no contingency plan, no future. He knows his limits, so changes his strategies to buy friends and influence people. And with such expertise that the Master has to appreciate how the steward provides forRead More →

Around 11km outside the city of Siauliai in northern Lithuania, an old, earthen mound hunches under the weight of thousands of crosses. As the wind blows across the fields of rural Siauliai County, ornate rosaries clink against metal and wooden crucifixes, filling the air with eerie chimes. Known as theRead More →

Jesus switches to an illustration about planning to build a tower and counting the cost before we do so. Or a king preparing to wage war against an enemy but first reckoning on the strength of his own troops before committing himself. In the same way, we are to reckonRead More →

Notice here that the listing: the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind – reflect those listed in Jesus’ initial declaration for his ministry way back in Luke 4:18: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,  because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.Read More →

Jesus has spent most of Luke’s Gospel teaching us how to be disciples; we have the theory; we have sat and listened; we have been there whilst he was speaking. Perhaps we have not realised that there will be a ‘test’. That the test is the day-to-day living of ourRead More →

If you were looking today for that feel-good Gospel passage, you might just walk away disappointed. Yet, Jesus never said that discipleship was one of convenience or that our faith wasn’t to be tested and tried through crisis and division. On 14th August in 1941, Maximillian Kolbe’s life was endedRead More →

The unexpected coming of the Son of Man, 12:40: This imagery, drawn from Daniel 7:13 (although without “the clouds of heaven”), is usually understood to describe Christ’s coming to earth in the last day, although from Daniel’s perspective, the coming is from earth to heaven, a coming into the throne-roomRead More →

It is good to remember that Jesus’ contemporaries lived lives of immense hardship, under very harsh social and political conditions. Famine or land appropriation were a constant threat for subsistence farmers, suffering under excruciating taxation practices. In this situation, the landowner who stored his surplus crop, instead of helping toRead More →

“Father” is the most starkly simple introduction of a prayer in the entire tradition of Israel. It may be a child’s word, Abba, Daddy. It is a word of family intimacy. All of this prayer is thoroughly Jewish. I recommend that you look up Joseph Fitzmyer’s commentary 900-901, where heRead More →