17th Sunday After Pentecost 2025

Like with most firstborns it was impressed upon me that I set a good example for my younger siblings. But I did not excel academically, musically, or athletically. That is to put in mildly! And yet I had a crafty rationale for the mediocrity. Out of concern for my four younger siblings I did not want to set the bar too high and simply overwhelm them. It was an act of charity on my part, don’t you see? … Is it an act of charity when in many of our churches we have been lowering the bar in recent decades?. It is thought we might attract more people that way. But we forget, the bar is not ours to set! Clearly, in the Bible the bar is set very high, impossibly high! And it is important that we understand this.