Lectionary blog for Nov. 2, 2025
21st Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 1:10-18; Psalm 32:1-7;
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10
We can probably all think of a time when we were disappointed about something that happened at church—when we hoped some good thing would happen, only to be let down. Once, my wife was turned away from the communion table because she wasn’t a member of that particular church. Decades later, that still stings for her.
Hopefully, we can also think of a time when God or the church surprised us with something better than what we thought was possible. After my wife was refused communion, she burst into tears, having never faced that rejection and humiliation before. An older woman in the pew in front of us marched up to the altar, took a portion of bread, and brought it back to my wife. She stage-whispered loudly enough for all to hear, “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you the wine, dear, but no one gets refused Jesus on my watch.”
That was a pretty shocking reversal! This week in the lectionary, we have a few more stories of shocking reversals.
“I hate it when you worship me!” God essentially proclaims through Isaiah. What? How can this be? God declares the new moon festivals, pilgrimages, sacrifices and holidays a burden. God can no longer stand the specific times and seasons appointed for acts of thanksgiving and praise. God refuses to listen to the prayers of the people. The situation has gotten so bad that God will close God’s divine eyes and refuse to even behold the chosen people. How did we get here?
There had been a terrible reversal, you see. The people had been going through religious customs but neglecting performing righteousness. The people had refused to care for the marginalized in society such as widows and orphans but thought that they could recite a prayer or hold a public worship gathering—as if that would matter to God when justice was neglected.
Isaiah takes aim specifically at hypocrites in positions of authority. When someone with blood on their hands prays in public, they will not be listened to; such behavior is an abomination (Isaiah 1:15). A little later, after the lectionary reading, God proclaims through Isaiah, “Your rulers are rebels, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them” (1: 23).
This week in the lectionary, we have a few stories of shocking reversals.
Public prayers—maybe even advertisements on television—that come from purveyors of violence who refuse to care for the least of these will have the opposite effect from that intended. The God of compassion and grace will refuse to hear such prayers and will reverse the divine inclination to embrace those who reach out in prayer if those prayers are steeped in violence and injustice.
Hundreds of years later, Jesus practices a little reversal of his own. When passing through the city of Jericho, Jesus looked up to regard a tax collector, Zacchaeus. All the townspeople knew Zacchaeus as a sinner—he collaborated with the Roman occupiers to extract wealth from the people and use it to fund the occupation. But Jesus insisted that he must stay at Zacchaeus’ house.
On the way, hearing the complaints of the people against him, Zacchaeus finally had the forum to stick up for himself. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if”—and we should pay attention to read that if as an if and not a when—”I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much” (Luke 19:8).
All the townspeople, and way too many preachers, understand Zacchaeus to be a greedy sinner. But Jesus sees who he really is: the most righteous person in town. Just as Abraham had welcomed travelers, pleaded on behalf of the innocent (Genesis 18), and rescued those who had been captured (Genesis 14), so Zacchaeus expended himself on behalf of the poor and took great pains to make right that which was wrong. Jesus reversed the public perception of Zacchaeus from a wicked sinner to the benefactor of the poor and friend of the messiah.
Sometimes a big, public worship festival is evidence of evil. Sometimes the person who everyone “knows” is a sinner is actually a saint. What God actually looks at and cares about isn’t outward appearances, but simply the question “How do you treat the poor, the widows, the orphans and the foreigners?”
