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Luke 1:46b-55
Advent 3A
The Year A Lectionary presents two options on this week’s Psalm. One option is what I will reflect on here from Luke 1. The other is a portion of Psalm 146. I am not writing on that as this entire psalm was the Lectionary psalm just a couple of months ago. If you wish to…
James 5:7-10
Advent 3A
This is a season of the year that we don’t generally link to patience. Children are chomping at the bit to open their presents. Some of us are impatient for holiday visits from family members and friends who live at a distance from us. A few of us may even feel impatient to be done…
Matthew 3:1-12
Advent 2A
“Across the United States in recent weeks, there have been tidal waves of accusation and blame, counter-accusations and blame, judgments and more judgments from the left and from the right and from all points in between. Political parties are said to have been judged by the voters. Individual politicians are said to have been repudiated…
Romans 15:4-13
Advent 2A
I didn’t have much money when I was in college. So I tried to drive as far on a tank of gas as I could. As a result, I ran out of gas in the middle of the night twice … in the space of less than a month. Each time I called my relatively…
Matthew 24:36-44
Advent 1A
In Anne Tyler’s novel, The Amateur Marriage, we witness a sad series of events. The book’s main characters are Michael and Pauline, a pair of World War II-era sweethearts who get married and eventually have three children. But then one day their oldest child, Lindy, just disappears. She runs away from home and promptly falls…
Romans 13:11-14
Advent 1A
While few people have labeled procrastination a “deadly sin,” our text at least suggests that one form of it may be the deadliest sin of all. That’s a sobering assertion for someone like me who is naturally one of the worst procrastinators that I know. At least some of us are tempted to procrastinate in…
Luke 23:33-43
Proper 29C
In most every language I have ever studied, it’s a tiny word. In fact, although I am aware of only a few languages amidst the plethora of tongues spoken on this planet, it’s striking to me that in the languages I know, this tiny word is about as tiny as it gets, consisting of just…
Colossians 1:11-20
Proper 29C
What a weird place to start our lectionary selection for Reign of Christ Sunday and the close of Ordinary Time. We get the last few verses of Paul’s thanksgiving prayer section, then all of the Christ hymn, but not the verses that describe the community’s reconciliation. If it’s “application” that we’re after, wouldn’t verses 21-23…
Luke 21:5-19
Proper 28C
Talk about the end of the world and everybody gets interested. The disciples were, too, when Jesus predicted some apocalyptic events. “Well,” they asked with faces a shade paler than they had been moments before, “when will all that bad stuff happen?” In answering them, Jesus gets even more vivid in predicting great and terrible…
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Proper 28C
Why were people in Thessalonica not wanting to work? Was it because they figured that Jesus was returning soon, or had already returned? Was it because things were a bit desperate after a famine in the area? Was it because many of them were continuing in a very normal pattern of client-patron relationships common in…
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