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
Sunday Prayer
How precious is your steadfast love, O God! How glorious is your lovingkindness, that your Beloved Child should begin your marvelous work, not with a display of power over nature (that we might tremble), or with a flashy revelation of divinity (that we might be smug), or even with providing blessed relief from pain or… Read More
Saturday Prayer: Waiting
Turn, O God! How long? Have compassion on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. ~Psalm 90:13-14 God of all places and times, we are waiting. We are waiting for your compassion to spread across your beautiful and broken world… Read More
Revised Common Lectionary: On Kings and Christ
I’m going to be honest. I don’t think Jesus loves “king” language. But here we are on the Last Sunday in Ordinary Time of RCL year B, and our readings, as always on this Sunday, are all about kings and kingship, and the surely strange application of that title to Jesus. (Readings can be found… Read More
Revised Common Lectionary: Love, Love, Love, Love
A preaching superstar once said that every preacher really has just two or three sermons in them, which they re-package every week. (He said that one of his is, “Christianity’s weird, odd. Why would anyone possibly want to be a Christian?” I’m pretty sure it was William Willimon, but I’m happy to be corrected.)… Read More
Thursday Prayer
God who greens and unfolds leaves, green me this day. There is so much in me that is closed and protected. There is so much that is fearful and hidden. There is so much that is almost ready if only… But you are the Sun that warms, That finds my spiritual chlorophyll, burrowing inside, basting… Read More
Narrative Lectionary: Rocky Beginnings, Risky Business (Acts 17:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10)
It is an oft-heard complaint among pastors that congregants are stuck on some long-ago and impossibly wonderful golden age of church life. When the sanctuary was full! And we had two services! And we almost didn’t have room for all the children! It almost makes you long for a story of a knock-down, drag-out fight,… Read More
Narrative Lectionary: The End Is Near Edition (Mark 13:1-8, 24-37)
The End Is Near. It is hard to read this week’s appointed verses without going to that well-aged, somewhat humorous image of the prophet of doom: the wild-eyed, shaggy-haired, tattered-clothed man yelling into the crowd, “The end is near!” And, if we can put end-of-the-world associations aside, this time, he’s right. We can see that,… Read More
Narrative Lectionary: First, Last, and Everlasting (Mark 10:17-31)
Our passage for the first Sunday in Lent is set in motion by an urgent question: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” What is eternal life? What, in particular, did Jews mean when using such a phrase, given the scant evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures for any developed notion of an… Read More
Narrative Lectionary: Parables Edition (Mark 4:1-34)
Years ago I had a professor who described his class- a survey of Christology- as being akin to “roller skating through the Louvre”- by which he meant: his job was, essentially, to say, “Look at this! Look at that! Look at this! Look at that!” Our journey through Mark reminded me of that professor and… Read More
