St Thomas

Proper 23B, October 14, 2018 Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15 Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31 St Thomas the Apostle The Rev’d Leo Loyola I last spoke of the Bible’s heavy bias towards the poor and disenfranchised. So what does it then say of the rich and wealthy? If Scripture favors the poor, does it, thus, frown upon them? If so, then, a lot of people in this Diocese, this state, and this country will be in for a surprise upon Jesus’s return. For the most part, if you happen to fall into this category you’re generally safe. Any real critique we do see against the rich are specifically against those who put their wealth before God. Any curse made is generally against those who wield unfair power and advantage over the poor and the powerless. For example, Mark 4 tells us that “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of…

Proper 20B, September 23, 2018 Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1 James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 St Thomas the Apostle The Rev’d Leo Loyola It began as an experiment. A group of first-year students from a very conservative seminary wondered what the Bible had to say about the poor and poverty. So they scoured through the Old and New Testaments of an old bible. And in their fervor, they made several keen observations: Poverty—second only to idolatry—was the most prominent theme in the Old Testament In the entire New Testament, one out of every sixteen verses spoke about the poor or the subject of money In the Gospels themselves, the proportions were greater. One out of ten in Matthew, Mark and John. And in Luke, one out of seven. After hours of work, the group identified thousands upon thousands of references. Surely, they felt, that the authors of bible saw the moral…