Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
AMOS 6:1a and 4-7
Thus says the Lord God:
Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,
and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria!
You lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on your couches;
you eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall;
you improvise songs to the sound of the harp,
and like David, invent for yourselves instruments of music;
you drink wine in bowls, and anoint yourselves with the finest oils,
but you are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile,
and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.
In the same vein as last Sunday, but with greater intensity. God’s rejection is expressed definitively, considering exile (imminent) as God’s punishment for the abuses of the wealthy. The last sentence is dramatic. The message is parallel, almost identical, to that of the Gospel.
1 TIMOTHY 6:11-16
But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.
To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
Paul’s exhortations to Timothy continue. No connection with today’s main theme.
José Enrique Galarreta