Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Epiphany 4B
Those who take a deep enough whiff of Deuteronomy 18 may detect at least a hint of death clinging to it. In fact, we might even say that the scent of death both lingers within and bookends the Old Testament lesson the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday. The lesson begins innocently enough, though (again!) right…
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Epiphany 3B
Sometimes actions have surprisingly pleasant results. A soccer players weakly strikes a ball that ricochets off a defender and into the goal. Or a chef blends guacamole, tuna fish and lima beans into a recipe that somehow turns out to be delicious. Other actions, however, have surprisingly unpleasant results. With perfect form a basketball player…
1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Epiphany 2B
Nothing quite grabs our attention like a voice in the night. After all, it almost always signals trouble. The voice may be that of a child from the next bedroom: “Grandma, I’m sick,” or a teenager’s cell phone: “Dad, I’ve run out of gas.” Sometimes, of course, the voice in the middle of the night…
Genesis 1:1-5
Epiphany 1B
Questions about the “beginning” (1) of the universe, earth and people intrigue at least some of us. So God’s people sometimes turn to passages like Genesis 1:1-5 for answers to those questions. Yet wise people also ask whether Genesis is even interested in those increasingly divisive issues. To honestly answer questions about creation’s beginnings, God’s…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Epiphany 4C
My wife mentions this semi-often. For her, it’s a combination of envy and consternation. The issue is vocation, “calling,” and it crops up in conversation between the two of us whenever someone asks me once again to tell my “call story” to be a minister or in case some other preacher—in the course of a…
Luke 5:1-11
Epiphany 5C
Comments and Observations Anybody can have a bad day fishing. But you don’t expect professional fisherman to come up empty, yet the men who went on to become the first disciples seemed often to have this problem. If you wanted to find somebody to become a “fisher of people,” you might want at the very…
Isaiah 40:21-31
Epiphany 5B
Comments and Observations Isaiah 40 is by no means the only place in the Hebrew Scriptures to see this irony but it is on glorious display in also these verses. You can see it also in places like Psalms 8, 19, and 90, as well as in the Book of Job and other places. What…
Exodus 24:12-18
Last Epiphany A
Perhaps few preachers and teachers will tackle Exodus 24 as a stand-alone passage, even on Transfiguration Sunday. That’s, however, at least somewhat regrettable. The Spirit has, after all, embedded at least a few gems into this passage. Exodus 24 functions as a kind of “swing chapter,” in the words of Old Testament scholar, Terrence Fretheim. …
Search Results: epiphany