The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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Overview and Connections
Who is God? What is God like? The readings today invite reflection on these questions at a deeper level.
The Exodus reading seems to suggest a God who is capricious; a God who makes promises but then is tempted to break them in a fit of anger. A God who seems open to human manipulation. 1 Timothy speaks of a God who chooses the unlikeliest of servants and elevates them in mercy and grace. Luke shows us God as man, surrounded by sinners, actively seeking those sinners in incomprehensible ways.
Who is God? What is God like? These readings suggest that God is far more complex than our sometimes surface analysis allows. God is not human and does not act as we do, and yet, God is indeed human and perhaps prone to act as we do. As in much of theology, we must hold both these truths in tension.
Who is God for you? What has God shown God’s self to be like? How would you describe God to someone else based on your own personal history?
Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14
Can God change God’s mind? Can we make God change God’s mind? Today’s reading seems to suggest that the answer is yes.
What would you like to change God’s mind about? What arguments would you use? Note in the reading, Moses’ technique of reminding God of God’s previous promises. What promises might you remind God of, and how do you think God would respond?
Moses is a leader, and several times (including this passage), he gives a model of what good leadership looks like. In today’s passage, he demonstrates that leaders sometimes leave their people to figure things out on their own. And then, when the people fail, the leader does not abandon them, but instead, helps them grow through the failure.
In Exodus 19, God tells Moses to go up on Mount Sinai, where he receives the ten commandments to give to the people. One in particular says, don’t make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold. In 20:24ff God gives them instructions for making an altar to him. Then, for the next 10 chapters, God gives instructions on all sorts of things pertaining to social responsibility and behavior. There’s a chapter on the festivals they’re supposed to observe. There’s instructions on building the ark of the covenant and a tabernacle to cover it, even the garments to be worn by the priests.
At the beginning of chapter 32, Moses has been up there forty days and nights (24:18), and the people (who were all assembled at the bottom of the mountain in chapter 19) are getting antsy. They find Moses’ time with God excessive, and so they devise their own gods fashioned in their own image. They convince Aaron (the high priest) to build them something they can worship since they can’t see God. This is the point at which today’s conversation takes place.
The calf that they made is not what they are worshipping per se. The calf is a tangible sign of their connection to YHWY. It was an attempt to make God physically present, but it went directly against God’s instruction against making images.
In this story, the people stray from God, and that might tempt us to judge them harshly. But consider it from this perspective: the people had experienced a miraculous rescue by a God they could not see. All the nations around them embodied their gods in physical form so that they could be seen and worshiped. The Israelites wanted to do the same. If you read the whole of chapter 32, you can see evidence that they knew it was wrong. But the deep desire was for tangible evidence of God’s presence. Perhaps that is something you can identify with.
In v7, God refers to the Israelites as your people whom you brought out of Egypt. In many places, God refers to the Israelites as “my people” (see Exodus 3:7 and 29:46). Here, God seems to feel alienated from his people. Notice how, in v11, Moses will remind God that these are indeed God’s people.
In v10, God tells Moses, “Let me alone,” which seems to imply that Moses has some power and agency: to restrain God from action or not. Perhaps it is a subtle invitation for Moses to intercede for the people. Still, it must have been a powerful temptation for Moses. Recall that Jesus himself experienced a similar temptation in the desert.
Moses gives us an important model for intercessory prayer. Moses begins his intercession not with who the people are or what the situation is. Moses begins in with who God is (v11) and what God has previously promised (v13).
V14 says that God relented or, in some translations, repented. Both words imply a change of course. Is this God changing God’s mind? Or is God responding within the dynamics of relationship?
Notice here the speed of corruption: “they have quickly turned aside” (v8). Think about all God had done to deliver them from slavery and how quick they are to abandon trust in God. What are parallels in your own life?
Moses “stood in the gap” for the people of Israel. Who needs you to stand in the gap for them right now?
Moses prefigures the work of Christ, who “is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). What concerns are on your heart right now? Imagine bringing them to Christ, who brings them to God the Father.
1 Timothy 1:12-17
I have a Bible that I purchased in high school. It was a semi-rebellious act because my family was staunchly King-James-Only, and I wanted a New International Version. It was the first of many such breaks I would make with my upbringing. This particular Bible is special to me because of the many notes I took, some of which were from my grandfather’s preaching. One in particular was from this passage, and it reads, “The will of God won’t take you where the grace of God can’t keep you. God will never ask us to do what God has not equipped us to do by grace.”
In the Exodus reading, God seems to need to be moved to mercy. The story of Paul presents a counterpoint to that (as well as the Luke parable): we see in Paul the recipient of a mercy unsought. As with most spiritual things, both are true and both must be held together in tension.
Recall a time when you acted contrary to God’s will. Can you see in those actions an ignorance and disbelief of God’s promises? Can you, in retrospect, appreciate the mercy and grace that came out of that sin? Can you ask God for the grace to know yourself as a loved sinner?
Luke 15:1-32
An option for today is to end the reading at v10 since vv11-32 are read during Lent. While you may not hear the latter verses this Sunday, they are an important literary unit of the whole for this passage.
Today’s reading gives us three illustrations of God’s mercy as well as an image of God the Seeker. In each story, there is a pattern of loss -> search -> finding -> rejoicing.
Let’s lay out the people we’re dealing with here in modern terms…. First there’s the Pharisees. When I think about them, I picture old-fashioned British judges in long black robes and powdered wigs, looking down their noses. Then there’s the shepherds. When I picture them, I think of the garbage collectors. Not the new ones where they just drive and push buttons. The ones I picture are the ones who jumped off the truck every driveway, grabbed the trash bins, and dumped them in. You can imagine that at the end of the day, they probably didn’t smell great. And then there were the women. This is a challenging one. When I think of these, I picture a young man I went to high school with. When he was 6 or 7 years old, the butane tank exploded right next to the trailer house where he lived, and he was the only one who survived. He was horribly disfigured. The kids at school would go to great lengths to avoid him. No one that I knew was really comfortable being around him. That’s kind of how the women were treated in that society. In the home, it might have been different, but out in public, men sort of pretended they didn’t exist, and if they encountered one, they’d go out of their way to avoid her.
The pattern in these stories begins with loss, and they suggest some different ways that people get lost:
- They wander off and can’t find their way home
- They find themselves in the dark
- They go in search of adventure and end up in a foreign place
- They seek something that is right in front of them
Each time, God goes off in search of them. Jesus says this might look like a shepherd searching for a single lost sheep. It might look like a woman looking for something of infinite value to her. It might look like eager expectation as God waits for someone to come back home. It might even look like going out to someone who doesn’t realize they are cut off from God.
And then there is the finding. In all these stories, the finding comes as a surprise. How could you possibly find a single sheep lost in the wilderness? Or a single coin hidden in a dark corner? Or a child who does not want to be found? Or a child who hides behind a wall of anger? And yet, somehow, God finds.
All too often, we end the pattern there. We might see ourselves as lost, sought, and found by God. But do we allow ourselves to sink deep into that reality? Can we enter God’s rejoicing and share it?
The reading begins in v1 by setting the scene in the midst of people of doubtful reputation. Jesus talked in an earlier parable about including the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind (14:13) and they were obviously outcast – the people on the very margins. Sinners and tax collectors were also on the margins, but not as far out as the others. They weren’t religiously unclean, but they also did not have the respect of the community.
The previous chapter ends with Jesus saying, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him listen.” These people in v1 come to listen. The outcasts are listening and responding positively.
In v2, the Pharisees murmur about this. They would not have been upset to see a sinner repent and convert. What offended them was that sinners were repenting and converting and then turning not to the Law but to Jesus. This verse is important in interpreting the three parables. Jesus is accused of consorting with sinners – welcoming and even eating with them. To eat with someone meant to accept them socially. So Jesus is accepting people where they are, and this offended the Pharisees. Note that in v2, Jesus is addressing these parables to the Pharisees.
The Lost Sheep v4-7
The first parable begins in v4, “what man among you…” Jesus is, in effect, comparing the Pharisees to shepherds. It’s an outrageous challenge, intended to provoke them. He’s comparing the powdered-wig folks to the garbage men, a job they would never stoop to. Pharisees considered shepherds unclean and members of a despised and forbidden profession. The immediate answer from them to this question is “never!”
What man among you would leave 99 sure things in search of one lost thing? Seriously? What kind of shepherd would actually do that?! In reality, a flock that size would have been under the care of several shepherds, and they probably would have belonged to a fairly large community. So he’s not leaving the flock to danger. It would be unthinkable for him not to leave the 99 in the care of the other shepherds and go in search of something valuable.
To search for a sheep on the hillsides of Palestine would have been a chore. The sheep might have wandered into a cave and not be able to hear the shepherd. Or it may be too scared to come out. And then there is the task of lugging a 70-pound sheep on your back over the rocky, hilly terrain! Once the sheep is found, the whole community celebrates its recovery.
How might faith communities today receive and celebrate lost sheep who are brought back?
The Woman and Her Coin vv8-10
The next parable switches to the sphere of women. It’s typical of Luke to match a male example with a female one. Remember that Jesus is talking to Pharisees, which means, by default, he’s talking to men. Polite society wouldn’t mention women or tell a story about them. Just like the polite people of my school didn’t really talk about the disfigured young man; we just ignored him and pretended he didn’t exist. It would be offensive all around to tell a story in public involving a woman.
But here Jesus is, telling a story in public about a woman, and he’s telling it in such a way that he expects these men to identify with it. He doesn’t compare them outright to a woman like he did above, but it’s just as offensive and challenging.
Houses of the time had windows up near the roof so that no one could see in. Anything lost in a dark corner would have been hard to find, so this woman has to light a lamp in a time when oil was expensive. The coin is likely from a woman’s bridal jewelry. To appear without the jewelry or with it incomplete would be deeply shameful. She simply must find the missing coin.
Like the previous parable, there is emphasis on the communal rejoicing over the recovery of a single individual.
The Prodigal Father vv11-32
The word prodigal means “spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.” This story is usually called “the prodigal son” because the son extravagantly wastes his inheritance. And that is true. But I think the real emphasis is on the father, who prodigally loves the son regardless of what he has done.
We read this parable on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and I have already provided detailed commentary there. During Lent, the prodigal father parable stands alone, and the focus is on the repentance of the son as he returns home. During Ordinary Time, this parable is in the original trio of parables, and now the emphasis is on God’s seeking and saving that which is lost.
One important thing to note about the Ordinary Time emphasis is on the seeking of the younger son. The father does actually go out to the elder son; he seeks him in a way that feels more similar to the other two parables. But the younger son is a bit different. I always like to use the image of the father getting his coffee every morning and going to stand at the end of the driveway, looking and waiting to see his son come back home. Sometimes God seems to come right into the middle of the mess we’ve made of things. Other times, God seems absent, waiting for us to realize our mistakes. We know that God never truly leaves us. But sometimes God does feel distant or even absent. Perhaps it is those experiences of not feeling God that are most effective in focusing our attention on our own lostness.
Conclusions
What images of God are at work in these parables?
Which parable do you most identify with? Try using it as a basis for imaginative prayer.
Recall a time when you were lost and somehow found by God. Can you imagine God rejoicing over you? Can you ask for the grace to enter into and experience that rejoicing?
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© 2025 Kelly Sollinger