Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 28, 2025: Woe to the complacent in Zion!

Woe to the complacent in Zion!
How often do we recognize our need for God? 

   The proud and self-confident leaders of Israel in Amos’s time had come to be so complacent, lying upon beds of ivory, stretched comfortably on their couches, that they even anoint themselves with the best oils, as if to mark their specialness! In their overconfidence, they don’t believe they need God; they are comfortable just as they are and, worse still, they are blind to the circumstances around them and to those whom they impoverish through their wastefulness. 

   Indeed, they are very much like the rich man in Luke’s Gospel, who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. This nameless man is so caught up in his own comfort that he does not seem even to notice the poor man named Lazarus, covered in sores, lying at his door. And yet when the rich man finds himself in torment in the netherworld, he has the audacity to ask that Lazarus be sent to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool the rich man's tongue! For years, the man did nothing to ease the pain of Lazarus, yet now he wishes to be comforted by him? He did not recognize the needs of the man at his doorstep and his overconfidence in his own self-sufficiency has been his downfall. 

   God, however, keeps faith forever, Psalm 146 reminds us, securing justice for the oppressed, and giving food for the hungry. It is the hymn of an individual who knows that only the Lord offers salvation. Only God is the source of true strength, and his compassion toward those in need is to be praised! Similarly, Paul reminds Timothy that, as a man of God, Timothy too must pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness, for this is how we best confess our faith, embodying all Christ calls us to be, allowing him to work through us to give life to all things. The more profoundly we are drawn into the love of God, the more completely we accept our deep need for his love in our lives, the more actively we can participate in his kingdom, for the good of all, meeting the needs of all, as the Lord desires. 

This post is based on OLMC’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com