Neli ML

  Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost 2025 Luke 16 :1-13 Rev. Neli Miranda   Today’s Gospel presents one of Jesus’ most intriguing parables, one that speaks directly to the issue of wealth. It is important to note that Jesus never condemned wealth in itself, but he consistently challenged the systems that allowed for its accumulation in the hands of a few. His constant teaching was to share resources with the poor, who made up the vast majority of the population in his time. To understand this challenging parable, we must place it in the economic context of first-century Palestine under Roman occupation. By this time, much of the land had been taken from its original family owners and given to local elites and Roman rulers. Land was concentrated in a few hands, forcing most people to become tenant farmers or day laborers. Furthermore, although God’s Law forbade it, the system allowed landowners to charge exorbitant interest rates, which they used to seize more land and ...

  Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost 2025 Lucas 14:1, 7-14 Rev. Neli Miranda   The “ honor and shame” culture ruled in some ancient societies, including first-century Palestine.   These were two pivotal values that structured the public life of Jewish society.   Honor was the fundamental “social currency” which was a reputation ascribed at birth in a recognized family and achieved through power, wealth, and social standing. Shame, on the other hand, was not merely private guilt but a public reality. It meant the loss of face and status in the community’s eyes. In Jesus’s time, most of the population—the poor, the sick, the despised tax collectors and prostitutes, and those considered criminals—lived in a state of shame, excluded from the circles of the honorable elite. Shame and honor governed public behavior and was a strong incentive that marked people’s daily actions. Maintaining one’s status was a primary motivation even if it meant stepping over others. So...