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Luke 8:26-39
Proper 7C
This is most definitely one of those texts that sends our modern senses spinning for application. Most of us do not have experience with exorcisms, and are generally uncomfortable with the idea/reality of demons. It may seem odd to say, but we can almost side-step the whole demonic exorcism if we focus our attention on…
Galatians 3:23-29
Proper 7C
Occasionally the Revised Common Lectionary’s choice of where to begin and end a Lesson isn’t just puzzling. It’s also downright bewildering. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson is a case in point. After all, the chasm between verses’ 23-25 and 26-29 may seem to be a kind of grand canyon that has no bridge that crosses it….
John 16:12-15
Trinity Sunday C
You may have heard it said that the Holy Spirit is the “shy one of the Trinity.” The description is meant to denote how the Spirit of Truth always points us to Jesus Christ—as Jesus seemingly describes in our passage today. It seems to me, though, that an unintended consequence of this descriptor is what…
Romans 5:1-5
Trinity Sunday C
A quick glance at the church year’s calendar may make gospel proclaimers’ pulses race. Trinity Sunday has, after all, come again. It may make proclaimers’ palms sweat not just because, as the New Testament scholar Beverly Gaventa to whose commentary I owe a great deal for this commentary, notes, “reference to the Trinity is itself…
Mark 11:1-19: The Indignant Re-entry – Palm Sunday B
In the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible illustrator Barry Moser provides hundreds of haunting images to accompany various Bible passages. His engraving for the Triumphal Entry captures something of this story’s essence. In the picture we see Jesus astride a little donkey colt. Jesus looks a little ridiculous riding on such a small animal–one of his bare…
John 3:1-21: Out of the Night – Lent 4B
Few people would dispute the assertion that John 3:16 is the single most well-known verse in the Bible. Children memorize it in Sunday school, the Gideons traditionally have placed this verse on the front page of their Bibles (usually printing it in dozens of languages), missionaries often use it as the starting point for evangelism….
John 2:12-25: House Zeal – Lent 3B
Fred Rogers, or “Mister Rogers” as we all knew and loved him, made a name for himself and became famous over the years because of his gentle spirit, warm smile, and quiet effectiveness. According to family and friends, there was actually no distinction between the Mister Rogers on the PBS television show and the real-life…
Mark 8:31-38: The Lenten Fork – Lent 2B
According to that great font of wisdom, Yogi Berra, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Mark 8 is a kind of theological fork in the road. This chapter is the hinge of Mark’s gospel. Not only is this the exact middle of Mark in terms of chapters and verses, it…
Mark 1:9-20: Where the Spirit Leads – Lent 1B
In a well-known sermon, the preacher Fred Craddock once said that you cannot get to Jesus without going through John the Baptist first. Apparently even Jesus could not get to be Jesus without John, either. Because his baptism by John in the Jordan River is included in all four of the Gospels (and that does…
Luke 2:1-20: The Shepherds Returned – Christmas B
Marilynne Robinson’s lyric novel Gilead is a letter turned memoir written by Rev. John Ames, a 76-year-old pastor who lived his entire life and conducted his whole ministry in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. Rev. Ames had been widowed very early on in his life but remarried finally when he was 67 years of…
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