Tag: wealth

A Different Kind of Patron

A sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 20
September 21, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13

Sometimes Jesus gets on a roll about something. Week after week, we see the same theme pop up in the gospel readings, and we have to wonder, what’s going on? Lately Jesus has been on a roll about our possessions and our money. This week is no different. At the end of today’s reading, Jesus gives us a mic drop: “You cannot serve God and wealth,” he says.

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The Last Accounting

A sermon for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 13
August 3, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-11; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

The big success story had a tragic bent, one that many people didn’t know about. Bill was a priest who was dying. He had a good and loving family–at least it seemed so. He had gone home on hospice care, and he wasn’t expected to make it long. I was called to administer last rites. I walked into the quiet house and to the back room. Bill was there in his bed, his wife and children with him in the room. The air in the room was sober, and it grew more sober as a man in black walked in. It always does. I had not expected Bill to be conscious, which more and more is the norm for last rites. But he was. I walked over, patted him on his hand, leaned down and said gently, “Hello, Father. I am here to give you last rites.” Bill’s head jerked back. “Last rites?!” He croaked out his alarm. At first it appeared no one had told him he was dying. I learned later he had refused to believe it, convinced he could make it through. But he died that night. 

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