Think about the landscape of our culture. What areas are desolate and scorched? Where can you see life and new growth?

In this reading, Jesus reminds his listeners that discipleship is not all about what Jesus can do for them.

In this letter, Paul is trying to convince Philemon to welcome back Onesimus, a runaway slave.

Here, God is imagined as an artist who knits and weaves us into who we are to become.

Unlike fired clay that is dry, hard, and often meant for one fixed purpose, we are soft and malleable in God’s hands.

Jesus calls us to extend welcome and grace to the ones who need it the most, rather than the ones who have something to offer back.

How often and in what ways do you offer a “sacrifice of praise”?

“There shall be no strange gods among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god.”

In this reading, the Lord contrasts living water with the stagnant water that seeps out of a cracked cistern.

To Jesus, mercy outweighs tradition every time.