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Matthew 26:14-27:66
Palm Sunday A
Some years back I heard what was reported to have been among the final gasping words of the famous singer Frank Sinatra. Sinatra’s signature song was “My Way” in which he crooned that when looking back on his life, although he had a few regrets, in the end “I did it my way.” But at…
Matthew 4:1-11
Lent 1A
Many of us have seen the bumper sticker, “Lead Me Not into Temptation: I Can Find It By Myself.” Cheeky humor aside, we know that God never actively leads us to sin and probably does not actively lead us to temptation (though this need not rule out God’s ability to test our faith). God is…
Matthew 17:1-9
Last Epiphany A
In the Harry Potter books, the students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have to take a course in “Transfiguration.” There they learn how to change teacups into rats or flowers into candles. And to most people’s minds that is pretty much what “transfiguration” is, too: it is a change of state from…
Four Pages: Living Signs
Later today and continuing tomorrow, the church at Handlon Prison is holding a revival. The chaplain at the prison asked Celebration Fellowship (a church in the prison across the street from Handlon) to plan and host a revival weekend. Invite people to worship. Tell people about Jesus. Ask God to change people’s lives. You know…that…
Matthew 5:21-37
Epiphany 6A
Say the word “radical” to the average person and the name of “Jesus” will likely not be the first thing that springs to anyone’s mind. If you think about “radical acts,” the Sermon on the Mount is unlikely to come to mind, either. Radicals throw Molotov cocktails at police and stage sit-ins and carry placards…
Matthew 5:13-20
Epiphany 5A
At a restaurant in California some while back I asked the waitress if their cioppino was good. She assured me it was. Cioppino is a wonderful seafood stew, and the server assured me theirs contained a lot of very fresh clams, shrimp, calamari, and more. I ordered it. And . . . it lacked all…
Matthew 5:1-12
Epiphany 4A
Suppose you could combine the personality traits of the Beatitudes and put them all into one person. What would Mr. or Miss Beatitude look like? Well, he would be consistently kind and yet also a bit shy, shunning the limelight. He would always downplay his own actions by claiming they were never enough to achieve…
Matthew 4:12-23
Epiphany 3A
We’ve come to call it “the Holy Land.” From the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the country of Jordan in the east, from Syria in the north to the Sinai in the south, travel companies, tour groups, and tourists treat this piece of Middle Eastern real estate as a unity. It’s where Jesus walked…
Matthew 3:13-17
Epiphany 1A
Poor John. It didn’t look right. What was going on here? This was not the public appearance of Jesus that John had set everyone up to see (cf. Matthew 3:1-12 for goodness sake!!!). As Matthew 3 ends, you can almost picture John the Baptist carrying on with the rest of that day’s baptisms with a…
Matthew 2:13-23
Christmas 1A
Wasn’t it just Christmas four days ago? Didn’t we all just get to visit the manger again, sing all those wonderful carols, feel aglow in the wash of twinkling lights and glimpses of angels fluttering overhead? But now Matthew, fresh off his exceedingly short birth narrative in chapter 1 and then the Magi story at…
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