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Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost A
Just before he ascended to the heavenly realm Jesus promised his disciples they’d his “witnesses … to the ends of the earth.” Yet nothing any of them had done or said up to that point had even hinted that they were up to that task. In fact, the gospels consistently portray Jesus’ disciples as a…
Acts 1:6-14
Easter 7A
Why do you stand here looking into the sky? is the compelling question around which, in some ways, the text the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday revolves. However, it’s also a question that the Lord might pose to Acts 1’s preachers, teachers and those who listen to us: Why do you stand here looking into…
Acts 17:22-31
Easter 6A
How do Acts 17’s preachers, teachers and those who listen to us share our faith with those who know little or nothing about what it means to be a Christian? How do God’s adopted sons and daughters speak the gospel to people for whom words like “grace” and even “sin” may sound like so much…
Acts 7:55-60
Easter 5A
Acts 7:55-60 may not be the best text to preach or teach in connection with a church ordaining deacons. In fact, after reading it, we may wonder why anyone would volunteer to serve as a deacon. After all, deacons expect needs that outstrip resources, sometimes impatient needy people and the odd bounced check. But death…
Acts 2:42-47
Easter 4A
Some of the Bible’s most intriguing stories involve events or phenomena that are both unprecedented and unrepeated. In those remarkable but rare instances God is uniquely present. However, even those wonderful stories are always only just a beginning. So when a barefoot shepherd stands before a bush that burns but never burns up, God is…
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Easter 3A
Peter’s first Pentecost sermon’s aftermath at least suggests that preaching and teaching the Scriptures is a bit like brandishing a lethally sharp sword. Since it can cut very deeply, its handlers want to be both very careful and prepared to help stop any bleeding our proclamation may cause. Reading the lesson the Lectionary appoints this…
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Easter 2A
Sometimes we need help understanding even the events that we ourselves witness. After all, no two-eyewitness accounts, to say nothing of the interpretations of the same incident are exactly the same. For our text’s Peter, there can be no doubt about what has happened in just the past few months. While we don’t know if…
Acts 10:34-43
Easter Day A
I sometimes wonder if Peter almost choked on the words: “I now know that God does not show favoritism…” In fact, with one biblical scholar, I sometimes wonder how he ever justified this to himself, much less Jerusalem’s church, as he does later. After all, Jews like Peter had always recognized that God might show…
Acts 10:34-43
Epiphany 1A
It beats me why the Lectionary—on a Sunday celebrating the baptism of Jesus—cuts this reading off at verse 43 just BEFORE there is a wonderful scene of baptism in Acts 10. In fact, I was so sure it was a typo on the one Lectionary site I consult each week that I looked up the…
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost C
What’s the best way to celebrate a birthday? How should one celebrate the birthday of important people or institutions? In fact, how should we celebrate what some have called the “birthday of the Church” that is Pentecost? When we celebrate our sons’ birthdays, we sometimes recall stories of their birth. Of how one was born…
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