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John 12:1-8
Lent 5C
In Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, one of the characters keeps saying over and over to the character of Big Daddy that you can just smell “the mendacity in the air.” This was a play with many layers of deception and lying and it became so very nearly palpable to some…
John 3:22-36
After the midnight conversation with Nicodemus in which Jesus proclaims who he is and what he is about on earth, the gospel writer solidifies and catapults the message by bringing Jesus and the John the Baptist’s storylines back together in verse 22. Back in chapter 1, John the Baptist is introduced as the man sent…
John 8:48-59
There’s a very well-known story about a man trapped in the water (variations include him on a roof during a flood, lost on a large lake without his oars, or lost at sea). The man, being a good Christian, prays and believes that God will rescue him. A boat happens upon him and offers to…
John 2:1-11
Epiphany 2C
Apparently we are going to have to revise our definition of “glory.” Sometimes things happen in life that make us update long-held notions and definitions. It reminds me of the scene from the movie A Beautiful Mind in which the socially inept genius mathematician John Nash (played by Russell Crowe) haltingly proposes to his girlfriend…
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
2nd Sunday after Christmas C
The Lectionary may get the last laugh here, and savvy preachers can curl up the corners of their mouths to join the mirth. Because here it is the first Sunday of a new year with Christmas now officially past us by about a week-and-a-half. For weeks now, starting well before American Thanksgiving even, it’s been…
John 18:33-37
Proper 29B
Comments and Observations: He doesn’t look like a king. More like a car accident victim. Or someone who went one too many rounds with Rocky Balboa in the boxing ring. Whether you call this last Sunday before Advent “Christ the King Sunday” or “Reign of Christ Sunday,” there is a kind of delicious irony to…
John 6:56-59
Proper 16B
Comments and Observations: But how does it all end? After plunking us down in John 6 for the whole of August in Year B, the Lectionary puts on the brakes before we can get to the end of the story where the REACTION of the crowds to all of this is recorded. So I would…
John 6:51-58
Proper 15B
Comments and Observations: In her short story “The River,” Flannery O’Connor depicts a child who actually drowns when trying to baptize himself in a river. After this startling story was published, someone asked O’Connor about this grotesque depiction of baptism. O’Connor’s critics thought this story was too extreme. But her goal was to remind her…
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