Failure to Communicate

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 21 (Year C)

Luke 16.19-31

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook Page (beginning at 23:50)

 

In the 1967 prison drama film “Cool Hand Luke,” the prison warden delivers a line that has crept into our cultural lexicon: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” Jesus could just as easily have said these words as a way of summing up today’s Gospel reading. Or words that could have been spoken by Abraham to the rich man. Which he essentially does, only in more theological language.

Finding the Lost

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 19 (Year C)

Luke 15.1-10

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook Page (beginning at 17:00)

 

Before my parents got married, my mother was a bookkeeper for a printing company in her hometown in Kansas. She was very good at her job and had a reputation of being thorough and detail-oriented. Even though she gave up that job when my folks got married (and she had to move halfway across country to join my father who was stationed in North Carolina), those bookkeeping skills have remained with her to this day. As soon as Mom gets her bank statement, she sits down and reconciles her accounts. She is not comfortable until she knows every last penny is accounted for. And she has been known to spend hours, even days, trying to find even a few cents on those rare occasions when her statement and her check register do not agree. Not that a few cents would break the bank. But for Mom, it’s the principle of the thing. She just doesn’t feel at ease unless she knows that everything is balanced and reconciled. So, when she does find those missing few pennies, she is overjoyed. And relieved. I’m sure we can all relate to the relief of finding those few missing pennies in our check register or finding those keys or other item that somehow were misplaced. And we can all relate to the joy, the sense of relief, when we find what had been lost.

Cost of Discipleship

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 18 (Year C)

Luke 14.25-33

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook Page (beginning at 11:05)

 

“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.”

 

How do these words make you feel? Uncomfortable? Confused? Fearful? Maybe even angry?

 

Make no mistake about it: these are not just some words Jesus said to a crowd of people 2,000 years ago. These words are clearly spoken to anyone who follows Jesus. Any one, for all time. These words are, therefore, spoken directly to each and every one of us.