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Matthew 14:22-33
Proper 14A
If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat. That was the title some years back of a popular book written by John Ortberg. And the title reflects what is doubtless the most common “take” on this story. Over and again this well-known story comes to mean something like…
Romans 10:5-15
Proper 14A
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson ought to make perhaps especially its proclaimers’ ears perk up. Particularly its end, after all, emphasizes the extreme importance of the work of proclamation. In Romans 9 Paul insists that salvation doesn’t depend on people’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. However, that raises the question of whether people have…
Matthew 14:13-21
Proper 13A
John the Baptist was the last great Old Testament prophet and the first great New Testament herald of the Gospel. He is a unique figure, a pivotal figure, a figure very nearly without parallel in the history of redemption. And yet he dies because of a stupid, senseless, lusty, and boozy blank check promise made…
Romans 9:1-5
Proper 13A
Pain saturates this Sunday’s RCL Epistolary Lesson. Romans 9 nearly overflows with what Paul calls his sorrow and anguish over widespread Jewish failure to faithfully receive God’s grace. It’s grief that’s a close relative of what some of Romans 9’s proclaimers also feel. It’s similar to the sorrow we feel over the failure of some…
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Proper 12A
Probably most of us have benefitted from mnemonic devices at some point. We might remember the primary colors in the visible light spectrum by remembering the name Roy G. Biv (which in turns gives us Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet). A strange one used by my junior high science teacher has nevertheless…
Romans 8:26-39
Proper 12A
So many Christians cherish this passage that it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of its central meaning. Paul talks in it about pivotal truths like providence, predestination and justification. Yet all of those things are like signs along the road that point to one central truth: God’s love is as invincible as it is sometimes…
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Proper 11A
The “Parable of the Weeds” is part of a cluster of parables that has to do with God’s kingdom (and the Year A Lectionary is dealing with these various parables one at a time). It is also one of several that has to do with seeds and agriculture. Over and again Jesus’ point is that…
Romans 8:12-25
Proper 11A
Parents take better care of their attractive children than they do their less attractive ones. At least that’s what an article in the 2008 edition of The New York Times reported Canadian researchers discovered. Researchers at the University of Alberta observed more than 400 parents’ treatment of their children during 14 different trips to supermarkets….
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Proper 10A
In between Jesus’ telling of this famous parable and his own point-by-point explanation of the parable’s meaning and symbolism there comes an eight-verse section that the Lectionary would have us skip but that contains some of the most intriguing material in this part of Matthew 13. Mainly what Jesus says there is that the seemingly…
Romans 8:1-11
Proper 10A
Few cinematic images are more powerful than that of a courtroom as a verdict is announced. In classic movies, the judge often verbally polls each individual member of the jury. Each offers crushing repetition. It’s especially poignant when the verdict is “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” The fear of having some great power or person pronounce us…
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