Queerying 15th after Pentecost C

Periodic queerier, River Needham, queeries the Tanakh reading.

Tanakh: Jeremiah 8:18-8:23(9:1)

When in grief I would seek comfort, my heart is sick within me.

“Is not the Becoming One in Zion? Is not her Majesty within her?
 Why then did they anger me with their images, with alien futilities?”

Hark! The outcry of my poor people from the land far and wide:

“Harvest is past, summer is gone, and we have not been saved.”

Because my people are shattered I am shattered;
I am dejected, seized by desolation.
Is there no balm in Gilead?

Can no physician be found?

Why has healing not yet come to my poor people?

Oh, that my head were water, my eyes a fount of tears! Then would I weep day and night for the slain of my poor people.

Queeries for the text:
What do we grieve?
How do we find comfort?
What makes our heart sick?
What is Zion?
What do we need to be saved from? Who will save us?
How are people shattered?
Where does Gilead show up?
Who are the slain of my poor people?

-----

Rev. Emily E. Ewing queeries the Gospel reading.

Gospel: Luke16:1-13

Then Jesus said to the disciples,

“There was a rich man who had a manager,

and charges were brought to him

that the manager was squandering his property.

²So the rich man summoned her and said to her,

‘What is this that I hear about you?
Give me an accounting of your management,

because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

³Then the manager said to herself,

‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me?

I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

⁴I have decided what to do so that,

when I am dismissed as manager,

people may welcome me into their homes.’

⁵So, summoning her master’s debtors one by one, she asked the first,

‘How much do you owe my master?’

⁶Ze answered,

‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’

She said to zim,

‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’

⁷Then she asked another,

‘And how much do you owe?’

Fae replied,

‘A hundred containers of wheat.’

She said to faer,

‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

⁸And her master commended the dishonest manager

because she had acted shrewdly;

for the children of this age are more shrewd

in dealing with their own generation

than are the children of light.

⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth

so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the everlasting homes.

¹⁰“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much;

and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.

¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth,

who will entrust to you the true riches?

¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another,

who will give you what is your own?

¹³No slave can serve two masters;

for a slave will either hate the one and love the other,
or be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Queeries for the text:
What did we skip?
How does gender change how we read this?
What kind of manager was this?
How is divide and conquer at work?
How does this manager resist the divide and conquer mentality?
How big is the difference between what is owed and what was borrowed?
What does it mean to act shrew(d)ly?
How does Jesus evaluate and value wealth?
What master do I serve?

What are your queeries?