After two weeks steeping ourselves in a bit of Matthew's gospel - parables from chapters 18 and 13 - we are now jumping gospel to Luke and picking up three stories about 'people' from Luke 15 and 16.  Although we are skipping the linking text, it seems to me fairly clear that Luke has a specific emphasis in mind in ordering and grouping the material as he does.

If anyone is looking for a bit of homework ahead of Sunday, then maybe they'd like to cast an eye over the Nazareth manifesto (Luke 4) and/or the Lukan (rather than Matthean) version of the beattitudes and solemnitudes (Luke 6).  These serve well as bits of 'scene setting' for what the gospel does, the emphasis the early readers/hearers needed... all of which leads me to speculate what church(es) in Jerusalem for whom Luke-Acts was written might have been like and what challenges they faced (as one of my commentaries notes, Acts 2 and 4 give hints about wealth and attitudes towards it that the writer may have felt a need to address).

Three different and challenging parables to play with - a fun week in prospect!