Proper 15 (20) – Year C
August 17, 2025
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 12:49-56
12:49 "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
12:53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
12:54 He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens.
12:55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.
12:56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Context
Coming soon.
Question
Coming soon.
Reflections
Disrupter of Peace?
By Fred Laceda |
The lectionary text for this week feels bizarre to say the least. Jesus says that he didn’t come to bring peace, but division. At first glance, this runs counter to everything we believe is Jesus’ message. After all, isn’t the work of sowing division and discord Satan's doing? What’s happening here?
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
Knots
by Joseph Stroud
Trying to tie my shoes, clumsy, not able to work out
the logic of it, fumbling, as my father stands there,
his anger growing over a son who can’t even do
this simplest thing for the first time, can’t even manage
the knot to keep his shoes on-You think someone’s
going to tie your shoes for you the rest of your life?-
No, I answer, forty-five years later, tying my shoe,
hands trembling with this memory. My father
and all those years of childhood not being able to work out
how he loved me, a knot so tight it has taken all my life
to untie.
Prayer
Coming soon.