By: The Rev’d Ivica Gregurec
Season: Ordinary 25, Year C (2025)
Readings: Amos 8:4–7; 1 Timothy 2:1–7; Luke 16:1–13

I runga i te ingoa o te Atua: te Matua, te Tama, me te Wairua Tapu. Amine.

I stand in front of you with great joy, seeing the faces of some of you who were here on Thursday evening, as I was inducted in the role of your Vicar, as well as those whom I see for the first time. I am coming with joyful and open heart and so I stand in front of you – feeling a bit like a newly ordained priest. You don’t know me – I do not know you. If I tell you a joke, will it be appropriate, how you might react. Until know each other better, I will stick with the script, assuring you that I am here among you with joyful heart, willing to share together our journey of faith.

So, what does the Scripture tell us today? The prophet Amos speaks with urgency and fire: “Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land… the Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”

Amos is not lamenting like prophet Jeremiah, but accusing – confronting those who cheat the poor, manipulate the market, and make profit from exploitation. His words could be addressed just as well to our own world: to systems of economic injustice, to corporations that put profit over people, to governments that prioritise power over care. God, says Amos, is not indifferent to how we treat the poor. God will not forget.

That prophetic urgency is echoed in our world today. We see it in the cries of innocent civilians suffering in the conflicts in Ukraine, Holy Land – Palestine and Israel, in the displaced and starving communities of Sudan, and in the grief of families mourning after the devastating earthquake in Afghanistan, that killed thousands of people. These are not far – off tragedies to be pitied from a distance – they are signs that Amos’s words still pierce our conscience. Worship of God cannot be separated from justice for neighbour, nor can faith be blind to suffering.

And into that reality Paul writes to Timothy: “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone… so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” Prayer here is not escape from politics or economics – it is a call to align our hearts with God’s universal compassion. We pray for rulers and strangers, friends and enemies alike, not because they are always right or just, but because all are held in God’s mercy.

The early Church Father John Chrysostom once wrote: “The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire, bridled the rage of lions, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death… prayer is an all-sufficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine never exhausted.”
If we believe this, then prayer for the whole world is never wasted breath – it is participation in God’s transformation of history.

Then we come to Jesus’ parable in Luke. The so-called “dishonest manager” is a troubling figure. He has squandered his master’s wealth, and yet, in his moment of crisis, he acts shrewdly – reducing debts, making friends, securing his future. Surprisingly, he is commended – not for dishonesty, but for his shrewdness. And Jesus concludes with that sharp word: “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Here the strands come together. Amos calls out economic exploitation. Paul calls us to a wide horizon of prayer. And Jesus challenges us to use whatever we have been entrusted with – money, influence, power – not in service of wealth, but in service of God.

This is especially poignant as we mark the Season of Creation. For four weeks the Church across the world and denominations remembers that our stewardship is not only of money and influence, but of the earth itself. To trample on the poor, says Amos, is also to trample on the land. Creation groans under the weight of exploitation, climate change, and environmental destruction. The way we consume, the way we treat the earth, is inseparable from the way we treat the poor – for it is always the vulnerable who suffer first and most when the earth is degraded. To serve God rather than wealth is to seek a way of living that honours creation as gift and sustains life for generations yet to come.

So, what does that mean for us today?

• in the face of the climate crisis, we are called to be shrewd stewards -not squandering creation for short – term gain, but reimagining our economies and lifestyles in ways that sustain life for generations to come. We cannot serve both God and unrestrained consumption.
• in the face of global conflicts, we are called to pray not just for “our side” but for all who suffer. That includes civilians in Gaza whose lives are shattered by bombardment, Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, families in Sudan who flee violence and famine, and survivors in Afghanistan digging through rubble for their loved ones. To pray for them is to affirm that every human being is made in God’s image.
• in the face of inequality, Amos asks us to name exploitation plainly, while Jesus asks us to use what power we have – however small – not to trample the poor but to lift them up.

As the 20th century German theologian Dorothee Sölle reminded us, “God has no hands but ours, no eyes but ours, no compassion but ours. God will not appear in this world except through what we do.” To follow Christ, then, is to be part of God’s answer to Amos’s prophetic cry, embodying the justice and mercy of God in our world.

So, friends, let us hear Amos’s challenge, Paul’s summons to prayer, and Jesus’ call to faithful stewardship. Let us name injustice honestly. Let us pray boldly for the healing of the nations. And let us act wisely with what is entrusted to us – our wealth, our influence, our lives – so that we may serve God and not wealth, justice and not self – interest, hope and not despair.

What a marvellous manifesto God gives us at the beginning of my ministry among you, which is, in fact, sharing of our common ministry that we have as a Church. May the God of justice and mercy work through us for the healing of the world. Amen.