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1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Pentecost A
Christians sometimes rightly think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church. Since birthdays are often occasions for gift-giving, it seems appropriate for preachers to join Paul in considering and celebrating the gifts [charismaton*] the Holy Spirit gives to the members of the Body of Christ that is the Church. Few texts open themselves to…
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost A
Trouble in the Text In the ancient Mediterranean world when Jesus was born, you could count on the fact that everyone spoke Greek as, if not a first, then a second or third language. It had something like the linguistic power of English in the world today. You could travel the world safely knowing you…
John 7:37-39
Pentecost A
The setting is the end of the Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles). The Festival remembers the way that God provided for the Israelites in their desert wanderings and is when they ask for God to send rain for the year’s crops. The people also looked to the future hope promised in passages like Ezekiel 47,…
John 17:1-11
Easter 7A
Jesus speaks the heart of the Trinity out loud in prayer for the disciples to hear. He speaks in the third person about himself at the beginning, but very quickly moves more passionately, intimately, and emphatically into the first person. This only deepens the significance of the words’ revelation about the heart of God. And…
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Easter 7A
It can be tempting to reduce discipleship to a kind of spiritual formula. “If we just do this and that good thing,” Jesus’ friends sometimes seem to assume, “then God will do that good thing.” This, however, reverses the biblical equation. More often, because God does this good thing, the Spirit equips us to do…
Acts 1:6-14
Easter 7A
It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday After the miracle of Christ’s ascension, it took a little while for folks to move on. A bit like Peter who wanted to build shelters on the Mount of Transfiguration, now the apostles’ feet are frozen on the Mount of Olives. So much so, that it took…
John 14:15-21
Easter 6A
We are in the Easter season and we’ve spent the better part of it remembering all of the different ways that Jesus spoke of the Easter power to come even while he was still here with his disciples. We pick up this week right where we left off last week. Jesus called himself the way,…
Acts 17:22-31
Easter 6A
Trouble in the Text The Apostle Paul had just taken the express train out of Berea. The Christians there showed him wonderful hospitality but the religious zealots from nearby Thessaloniki came into town to rough him up. So his peeps bundled him off to Athens, where Scripture tells us, he was waiting for Silas and…
1 Peter 2:2-10
Easter 5A
God uses God’s image-bearers’ race, gender, history and other things to shape who we are. Yet while those factors help form us, Jesus’ friends don’t find our central identity in them. We are first and foremost what Peter refers to in verse 10 as “the people of God [laos Theou*].” By professing that, the apostle…
Acts 7:55-60
Easter 5A
The Lectionary text is only 5 verses long but it is in the context of one and a half chapters telling us the story of Stephen. Making connections to the five verses in the Lectionary, I will use my commentary to tell this larger story. Illustration Reformation scholar Kenneth Woo’s newly released book, Refugee Calvin,…
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