Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Easter 7B
[…] of the Gospel out into the world, following Jesus directions/prophecy in Acts 1:8. And given that last Thursday was Ascension Day and that next Sunday will be Pentecost, I expected to focus today on those two great moments in Redemptive History from which the progress of the Gospel flowed. Instead, we get this transitional […]
Galatians 3:23-29
Proper 7C
[…] out our relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. The Revised Common Lectionary originally designated Galatians 3:23-29 as the Epistolary Lesson for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost. So it followed Galatians 1:11-24 and 2:15-21’s lessons. However, the RCL has since, regrettably, omitted the Galatians 1 and 2 passages from its Year C schedule. […]
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Proper 24C
[…] ultimate fulfillment in Christ, particularly the part about writing God’s law onto our very hearts, which surely looks like (among other things) a preview of the post- Pentecost fact of the Spirit’s making each believer a living Temple of God himself. Of course, the passage contains some other curious items that we don’t always […]
Psalm 122
Advent 1A
[…] was vital. God was on the move there, his Spirit was present, and he was doing a marvelous work in the sight of his people. But with Pentecost’s outpouring of God’s Spirit onto all his children, with the revelation that we are now all temples of the Holy Spirit, the Christian tradition has over […]
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
[…] in a trinitarian sense is always ‘persons-in-relation’ and we mean by it something private, individual, separate, apart, as in “I’ve got mine; too bad about you.” But Pentecost is a communal event including diverse tongues that bring people together, not apart. It reverses Babel. John on Patmos, Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, Daniel to Israel […]
The Four Pages of the Sermon
[…] need to major in God and in grace. Social justice liberals and evangelicals alike tend to give us shoulds, musts, and have-tos. We don’t get enough Easter, Pentecost, Ascension. We get Emerson under other names. We get self-reliance preached to us, and it can’t save us. Preachers avoid grace because it ‘lets people off […]
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Easter 2A
[…] to shutter your hardware store for good, for instance). Still, getting Matthias on board was about all we know about the time that passed between Ascension and Pentecost. But then the promised Holy Spirit did come and if the Spirit made once-weak and awkward and shy disciples into bold preachers, it is hugely clear […]
Acts 2:42-47
Easter 4A
[…] fly, you cannot fault them if they don’t stay up there too long. It’s just amazing they can fly at all. And by the Holy Spirit of Pentecost who launched the church in the first place, all through history our feeble, flawed, and faulty congregations have pretty consistently managed to do a whole lot […]
Ascension Day: How We See Things
[…] it is. This isn’t an impossible task for us because in a very real sense it’s not a task at all. It’s who we are by grace. Pentecost is coming up in two weeks. We are drenched in the Spirit’s presence now and as a result of that divine gift, everything changes. God has […]
Acts 10:34-43
Easter Day A
[…] proselytes in the past, becoming sort of Jewish. But these Gentiles have now believed in their Jewish Jesus and received the same Spirit they had received at Pentecost. The Gentiles have a Pentecost, too. What does this mean for the church going ahead? How Jewish do these Gentiles believers have to become? How many […]
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