25th Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

Jeff Bagnall • 11 September 2025

The Sunday readings only use the prophet Amos three times; this and next Sunday are two of those. Amos was a country man used to living a simple life: a herdsman tending sycamore trees. Somehow he came to be a prophet of God in the city of Bethel, though he wouldn’t claim the title of prophet and was different from most of them. Such a man coming from the country to the big and prosperous city just had to speak what he thought in order to deliver a ‘scolding’ from the Lord, for the hiking of prices, lowering of measures and fixing of scales (Amos 8:4-7). His natural reactions to the corruption that he saw is described as visions from God, and they are nearly always expressed with an impressive literary style: matching couplets and triplets. Yet it is the language of wrath and condemnation, though elsewhere Amos does tell of a remnant few who will be spared and at the end of the book there is a very positive prophecy though this ‘epilogue’ may have been added later to end on an upbeat note of hopefulness.

The second reading, as last week, is from the first letter to Timothy (2:1-8). In this second chapter the writer is urging the Christian communities to which it is addressed to be sensible and prayerful citizens. Prayers are of different kinds: asking for what we want, praising and thanking God and interceding for others who perhaps wouldn’t pray themselves. God wants everyone to be saved; the rulers and non-believers could easily be looked down on by enthusiastic Christians, and there were some, believing that only the Christians were pleasing to God, who regarded what they would call pagan society as evil; the writer wants to oppose this early mistaken view. The last sentence of our reading about praying with hands held high is gender specific; only men prayed in this way (which was common among other religious groups at the time as well).

The parable that is at the beginning of the gospel reading is only found in Luke. He was writing later than Matthew and Mark and addressing a wider background – Gentiles who were or were interested in Christianity. Luke, like Paul, was utterly in favour of non-Jews also accepting Jesus’ teaching. The parable itself ends in verse 8 and is followed by other and various sayings that can distract from this unique parable.

The parable makes me think of God as an ‘overlord’ of some enterprise (this is all just my view). Under him is a steward who actually does all the ‘managing’ of the business – one manager representative of a whole body of them. The business is beset with a lot of problems and so the manager is threatened with ‘retirement.’ So the manager must do what he can to persuade the workforce to improve, and is relatively successful.

I like to think that the application of this parable to life is as follows. God is the creator of the whole universe and so for our bit of it – earth. The Jews first and Christians later are responsible for this creation. Both groups (like many other religious faiths) thought that they were privileged and proud of it, neglecting or even condemning others. But God really wanted (and still wants) all to care for others and for all of His creation. People will be failing if they don’t try to make all proud and feel blessed by the world they are responsible for.

We are these stewards of God’s work and must promote its good to the utmost of our ability. We must not be like some of the Jews and many of the Christians who imagine that we are ok but others are not! We will have to give an account of our stewardship and will be praised when we make others happy and caring of the whole of creation. If we do then it will be the case, as the parable ends “The master commended the dishonest steward, because he had acted prudently.”

See Jeffs Jottings – Amos

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

6th Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 8 May 2026

The first reading is from the point in Acts where Luke tells of the extension of Christianity beyond the confines of Judea and the limits of the Jewish religion. Christianity is spread by Philip, one of the ‘deacons’ appointed to help the Hellenists in Jerusalem (see last week’s first reading). He goes to the Samaritans, who had become separated from the Jewish faith when they intermarried with non-Jews centuries earlier, and who were despised by the Jews. We have mixed reports about them in the Gospels: Jesus sent the chosen twelve out saying “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans” (Matthew10:2-6); Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25ff); and in John’s Gospel (Chapter 4), Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman and many Samaritans come to believe in him through her testimony. Philip had been commissioned through the laying on of hands by the Apostles specifically to pastor the Hellenists in Jerusalem, but now we see him as a missionary (sometime translated as an evangelist – one who preaches the Good News) to the Samaritans. He is successful Luke tells us, because of his words and the miracles attributed to him; many of them are baptised; we recall that Peter had told the Jews, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38f). Peter’s words imply that baptism brings the gift of the Holy Spirit and is open to “whomever God will call.” But when the Apostles in Jerusalem hear of this they send Peter and John to lay their hands on the Samaritans for them to receive the Spirit. Behind this we might detect some edginess between the ‘mother’ church’s leaders and the successful evangelist, Philip, though it is not made explicit, for Luke when he was travelling with Paul stayed with Philip at his house in Caesarea (Acts 21:8-10). We learn from this reading about the growth of the Church both as a community of the Spirit and as an organised body (of Christ); the process will always be difficult and is still going on in the worldwide context of the Church to this day – we all play a part in this.

5th Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 1 May 2026

In the reading from Acts ( Acts 6:1-7 ) we have an example of the early development of the institutional aspect of the Church. The instigation for this was the increase in the number of Christians from among the Hellenists – Jews who lived in the Diaspora, that is, outside of the Jewish homeland. The need for development resulted from a complaint from these Hellenists that the pastoral care of the members of their community was not being met because of a shortage of staff who might provide this. There was a general meeting and the Twelve leaders said that their particular responsibility was for prayer and preaching the word of God, and so they suggested that seven other people should be selected for the pastoral work that was needed. Those selected should have the appropriate qualities: good reputation, wisdom, and a life with God’s Spirit. They were selected by the people, and the Eleven laid their hands on them to commission them for this task. The passage concludes with Luke again telling us of the increase in numbers – the growth and development of the Christian communities was the main instigation for the writing of the Acts of the Apostles. We learn from this that the Church needs to develop and adapt to the different needs and circumstances that arise; this is much more complex and yet also more urgent now, for the church as we know it now is not only broken into different denominations but also is spread worldwide and the most numerous of all religions.