RCL: God Calling

My call story involves an Amy Grant song and Route 128 in Massachusetts. I was already enrolled in a graduate program in Pastoral Ministry. I had been thinking of it as a useful prelude to what I thought I wanted to do: study Jungian psychotherapy. Then, one fall day I found myself driving to the… Read More

RCL: Origin Stories

In her final, beautiful book, the late, luminous Rachel Held Evans wrote, The role of origin stories, both in the ancient Near Eastern culture from which the Old Testament emerged and at that familiar kitchen table where you first learned how your grandparents met, is to enlighten the present by recalling the past. Origin stories… Read More

RCL: We Can Work it Out

This morning as I was pondering the interesting mix of texts on offer, I had a sudden realization: these were the Revised Common Lectionary texts for Sunday November 13, 2016– the Sunday following the U.S. presidential election. I chose then as I choose this week, to use the Isaiah and Luke texts. About two-thirds of… Read More

Revised Common Lectionary: Lost and Found

Years before I was out to my congregation, Friend A approached Friend B, and said, “I think Pat R. is gay.” Friend B, who knew full well that I was indeed in a relationship with another woman said, “Well, what makes you think that?” Friend A replied, “I saw her at the Pride worship service!”… Read More

RCL: Faith Journeys

Our four texts take us on four different journeys of faith: The journey of God’s covenant people, imaged as the beloved child of God their mother…Hosea 11:1-11. The journey of those God gathers in from the four directions, people who are in distress, hungry and thirsty and in need of a habitable home…Psalm 107:1-9, 43.… Read More

Revised Common Lectionary: Resurrection Encounters and Easter People

What gorgeous texts the Revised Common Lectionary offers us for this coming Sunday! A passage from Revelation that is perhaps known best to most of us from its myriad musical settings, from Handel’s “Messiah” to “This is the Feast of Victory”… A psalm whose text outlines God’s power to transform, as Working Preacher commentator Bobby… Read More

Preacher Party: Lent 2, Mother Hen Edition

Greetings RevGals and Pals! How goes your sermonizing this Saturday, noon-thirty-ish, EST? (Passages are available here at The Text This Week. Reflections and conversation starters are also on this blog, at the Revised Common Lectionary and Narrative Lectionary posts. I also highly recommend this week’s Raven Review post, which takes a fascinating position about the… Read More

Revised Common Lectionary: Over A Cliff Edition

I am searching the texts for the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time/ Epiphany for a thread– a single idea or force that binds them together. I can pair them in various ways… The call of the young prophet Jeremiah seems a natural companion for the Gospel lesson detailing early days in Jesus’ ministry, including his… Read More