Our scripture of this weekend is about “ownership”; owning what we do and being re-sponsible for our actions. In our culture of today, most folks always seem to be able to find someone else or some other institution to be responsible. We only claim ownership if we are successful and famous. We do not get concerned at all about being responsible and decent people on a daily basis.

The scripture this weekend informs or reminds us of the great justice of God. The scripture also challenges us about our sense of justice in our own lives. In the passage from the Old Testament, Amos the prophet is seen as caring a lot. He lived in a time when the people had ever increasing prosperity that came about from abuse of the poor and marginalized. Amos was very clear about their greed and abuse for he said that they even wanted to work on the Sabbath and mis-weigh to their advantage a measure of grain. He proclaimed that these type of abuses will not be tolerated or forgotten in heaven. Amos was not against making money, but he was if it is on the backs of the poor. He told them that greed and avarice can keep you from serving God. Money becomes an idol for people. This idol does away with justice and keeps one away from God.

The major theme of the mass readings this weekend is God’s forgiveness. Upon reflection, we may realize that God’s forgiveness is part of the core of our faith. The gracious acts of forgiveness by God truly empower us to go on in our daily lives. We realize that there is no completely logical or scientific explanation of why our God forgives us. Forgiveness by God gives us back our future and puts us back on the right road to living life

The larger message of this weekend’s readings is that we probably need to look at life differently than we do and that we should change or adjust our point of view. For what we see has to do with where we stand in the sense of what we can see. Too close, we see too little, and too far, we miss the details; we need to change our mental point of view as according to this weekend’s scripture. In many ways, we only see things from our own point of view. We are being invited this weekend to look at things from God’s point of view, or at least to incorporate part of this view into our own.