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Acts 1:6-14
Easter 7A
When it comes to what’s up and what’s down in this passage, there is a lot of back-and-forth when you think about it. First off, as we begin Acts, Jesus is where he has been for about the last six weeks: he is mostly here on this earth walking around with, eating dinner with, and…
John 17:1-11
Easter 7A
Unity, it seems, is that elusive description for God’s church. We hear the calls for it but disagree on the terms. We know it is part of God’s solution for what ails humanity, but we cannot grasp the way of sacrifice on the road to peace. We rightly identify it as the way that Jesus…
Acts 17:22-31
Easter 6A
Well, you win some and you lose some. Paul had some experience with the truth of that old adage, and some of the relevant experiences can be seen in Acts 17 and Paul’s famous conversation with the Athenians at the Areopagus. The day was not without its spiritual victories. The chapter concludes by telling us…
John 14:15-21
Easter 6A
Separating this part of Jesus’s conversation with the disciples from last week’s helps us focus on the bonded (in the sense of stuck to/with) nature of God-with-us, no matter which particular person of the Trinity it is who is with us. The ties that bind us, of course, is the love of God. If we…
1 Peter 3:13-22
Easter 6A
One of Bob Dylan’s most famous songs begins, “You may be an ambassador to England or France/ You may like to gamble, you might like to dance/ You may be the heavyweight champion of the world/ You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.” “But,” Dylan repeatedly adds, “you’re going to have…
John 14:1-14
Easter 5A
Comments, Questions, and Observations “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” These words can apply to so many different situations, but in this particular text, they immediately follow Jesus’s prophetic promise that he is about to be betrayed by one them, will be leaving them, and will be denied by one of the most loyal…
1 Peter 2:2-10
Easter 5A
Hiking is a kind of art form. After all, people who do it well manage, among other things, to keep a watchful eye on both what’s on the ground on which they walk and what’s above that ground. Artful hikers understand that there is generally much that has the potential to both trip up and…
Acts 7:55-60
Easter 5A
On the face of it, a six-verse Bible passage that centers on the brutal murder of an innocent man does not appear to be an edifying preaching text. Perhaps that seems all the more to be the case when we realize this passage is assigned in the Year A Lectionary for the Season of Eastertide…
1 Peter 2:19-25
Easter 4A
God has graciously called God’s dearly beloved people out of spiritual darkness and into the light of God glorious salvation. God has also called God’s adopted children to be God’s elect, God’s chosen people and heirs of God’s riches blessings. However, in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, Peter describes another high calling from God. God has…
Acts 2:42-47
Easter 4A
Every once in a while when surveying the sometimes messy, untidy nature of church life, someone will say to me “If only the church today could be more like the Early Church in Acts.” My typical, semi-cheeky retort to this is usually, “Have you read The Book of Acts? We already are like the church…
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