Advent 3A: Watch Your Step
Have you ever felt really let down by something? Maybe it was a meal at some well-known restaurant. You’d looked forward to tasting this particular chef’s cuisine for so long but when you actually got to try the food, it was strikingly ordinary. Or perhaps it was some long-anticipated movie: maybe it was the sequel…
Advent 4A: God With You
Parents typically give the naming of a child a lot of thought. Sometimes the discussions go on so long that you run across a couple in the maternity ward who, even the day after the child’s arrival, still don’t know what to name him or her. That always takes me aback a bit. You’d think…
Advent 4A: God With Us
A number of years ago, somewhere in England, a schoolboy wrote these words in an essay: Why are so many twins born into the world today? I believe it is because little children are afraid of entering the world alone. That’s deep thinking for a schoolboy. This boy pointed his small finger at a big…
Advent 2A: Rearranging Our Price Tags
Our eyes naturally focus on stars — baseball and football greats, movie actors, TV personalities, famous authors, rock stars and tennis players. These are the people who dazzle us and dominate our magazines and television screens. We pour over the details of their lives: the clothes they wear, the people they love, the way they…
Luke 2:1-20
Christmas Day A
[…] like “Savior” and “Christ.” Luke didn’t need to tell us what the shepherds said: it’s obvious. It’s the same thing we’ve been saying and repeating this whole Advent season, same as every year when Christmas approaches. But this Christmas morning I want to suggest that the shepherds may have said some things we don’t […]
Mark 1:4-11
Epiphany 1B
[…] texts in December, then the first four verses of our text today will be familiar because they were also in the passage for the second Sunday of Advent. In my commentary for that week, one of the things I focused on was the fact that God decided that the good news about Jesus Christ […]
John 18:33-37
Proper 29B
[…] like a car accident victim. Or someone who went one too many rounds with Rocky Balboa in the boxing ring. Whether you call this last Sunday before Advent “Christ the King Sunday” or “Reign of Christ Sunday,” there is a kind of delicious irony to be savored by reading this snippet of John 18. […]
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Proper 28B
As we inch ever closer to Advent and another new church year, the Lectionary introduces us to yet another woman who loomed large in the history of redemption. In the contemporary climate of concern about women’s rights and the abuse of women, it is uncanny that the writers of the Lectionary should have long […]
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Christmas 1B
Rejoicing in Salvation For those churches that celebrate a strict Advent fast from Christmas hymns, this Sunday lands with all the pent-up energy of the season. Church musicians stuff this service full of all the carols that wouldn’t fit on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning worship. There are plenty of “Joy to the Worlds” […]
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Christmas 1B
[…] challenges for preachers. For one thing, the first (and better-known) part of Isaiah 61 was assigned earlier in the Year B cycle on the Third Sunday in Advent, and since the last couple of verses of Isaiah 61 continue and complete the themes started earlier in the chapter, anyone who brought this text to […]
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