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2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Trinity Sunday A

The Revised Common Lectionary’s choice of this Sunday’s particular Epistolary Lesson is rather quirky. Of course, at one level, we get it. On what we’ve designated as Trinity Sunday, this Lesson contains a stirring and lovely benediction that flows from all the members of the Trinity. Yet the choice of this passage from 2 Corinthians…

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Four Pages: All-Surpassing Power

This sermon was preached at the Calvin Symposium on Worship, January 30 & 31, 2014 Theme:    God’s all-surpassing power is our hope in every weakness. Doctrine:    Hope Image:    Jars of Clay Need:      To own that we are fragile & ordinary. Mission:    To celebrate that God’s all-surpassing power is enough. Introduction to Scripture Brothers and…

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2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Lent 4C

“From now on,” Paul insists to the Corinthians in this Sunday’s RCL Epistolary Lesson, “we regard no one from a worldly point of view (16)”.  Yet whenever I hear him say that, I want to ask, “Really?!  Do we really no longer view people from a worldly point of view? After all, how quick aren’t…

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2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Last Epiphany C

Sometimes the lessons the Lectionary appoints for a particular Sunday seem about as loosely tied as some teenagers’ tennis shoes.  On this Transfiguration Sunday, however, that’s not the case.  It doesn’t take much work to recognize the themes that run through the Old Testament, Psalm, Gospel and Epistolary lessons.  Each in its own way reflects…

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2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Proper 9B

As we have been noting, throughout 2 Corinthians Paul seems a bit all over the map.  The criticisms made behind his back and the charges of the “super apostles” seem to have driven Paul to a kind of emotional brink.  By his own admission in one form or another, he has been nearly beside himself…

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2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Proper 8B

Most ministers get uncomfortable where the subject of money is concerned.  So we make jokes about it, like the time I was at a church where the minister said “Do you believe in the hereafter?”  People applauded that they did so believe.  “Good,” the minister went on “because we’re here after a good offering!”  Ha…

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2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Proper 7B

Ouch!  We have been noticing recently that 2 Corinthians can be a hard letter to read.  There is so much personal, professional, and pastoral pain in the background for Paul.  But at the end of this Lectionary selection Paul brings the hammer down pretty hard: he is being perfectly loving toward the Corinthians—as he always…

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2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17

Proper 6B

When we were younger (so much younger than today . . .), we perhaps naively thought that so long as we were sincere and well-intentioned then, even if we made mistakes (as we all do), we could avoid creating any enemies, avoid having anyone who so disliked us as to avoid us in public even…

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2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Proper 5B

There’s no two ways about it: Paul’s second letter to the folks in Corinth can be tough to read.  When Paul is not ranting and raving against his “super apostle” foes who have been badmouthing  him up one side of the street and down the other, Paul also makes it clear that he himself has…

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2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Proper 4B

In her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion recounts what she thought about during the year following her husband’s sudden death.  Near the end of December 2003, Didion and her husband were sitting down for dinner, having just come back from visiting their gravely ill daughter in the hospital.  Her husband John was…

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