Additional content related to Reconciliation
Exodus 12:1-14
Comments, Questions and Observations: Of all the strange details of this strange meal, isn’t it a bit odd that God tells the people of Israel, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” As though the…
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Patterns of preference and favoritism and jealousy replay themselves with uncomfortable regularity through the history of God’s people. Abraham’s son Ishmael is nearly written out of the story by Sarah’s jealousy. Isaac and Rebekah are #TeamEsau and #TeamJacob accordingly. Jacob shames Leah and honors Rachel. No doubt the ten sons of Leah have noticed Jacob’s…
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
Revelation 21 is the last stop on the RCL’s “tour” of the book Revelation. That tour is so short that I sometimes wonder if those who constructed it were impatient to get to its happy ending. It’s almost as if they so tired of Revelation’s horrors that they decided to hurdle most of them so…
Ephesians 2:11-22
Could Paul say anything more counter-cultural yet hopeful than Christ has made the two one? (14). We live, after all, in a world that’s deeply divided along so many lines. In fact, the gaps those fault lines create also seem to be widening. Democrats vs. Republicans. Liberal Party members vs. Conservative Party members. Vaxxers vs….
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
2 Corinthians 6 virtually drips with pathos. It reveals the heart of an apostle who has been both reconciled to God and invites others to be reconciled to God, but has been stonewalled by people to whom he longs to be reconciled. While God has graciously reconciled Paul to himself, Paul’s friends in Corinth have…
Mark 1:4-11
Fans of Peter Jackson’s films in The Lord of the Rings trilogy will recall the opening sequence in the final film, The Return of the King. As the movie opens, we are taken back hundreds of years from the main action of the trilogy to the time when the Hobbit-like person Smeagol finds the Ring…
Hebrews 2:10-18
Near the beginning of measured time, God created the heavens and the earth. God also created our first parents for fellowship with each other and the Lord, as well as to help care for what God makes. Adam and Eve, however, chose to do the one thing God explicitly asked them not to do. Then…
Philemon 1:1-21
What a gift this little letter from Paul is to the church! Though all of Paul’s letters in the New Testament are about practical matters of life and faith, and though all of his guidance, advice, teachings and admonitions are rooted in a deeply Christological theology, none of the other letters quite show Paul’s personal…
Colossians 1:15-28
If the first four verses of this Sunday’s RCL’s Epistolary Lesson don’t make its preachers and teachers’ heads spin at least a bit, we’re probably not paying enough attention to them. In verse 15, after all, Paul insists, probably no more than 20 years after Jesus ascended into the heavenly realm, he’s “the image of…
Romans 5:1-5
Trinity Sunday can be one of the most intimidating days on which to proclaim God’s Word. It’s not just that while Christians profess that it’s a biblical truth, the Bible never actually uses the term “Trinity.” It’s not even just that the Trinity is notoriously difficult to even begin to explain. It’s also that if…
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
“From now on,” Paul insists to the Corinthians in this Sunday’s RCL Epistolary Lesson, “we regard no one from a worldly point of view (16)”. Yet whenever I hear him say that, I want to ask, “Really?! Do we really no longer view people from a worldly point of view? After all, how quick aren’t…
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17
When we were younger (so much younger than today . . .), we perhaps naively thought that so long as we were sincere and well-intentioned then, even if we made mistakes (as we all do), we could avoid creating any enemies, avoid having anyone who so disliked us as to avoid us in public even…
Romans 15:4-13
Acoustics are everything when it comes to how a text is heard but in these days of political turmoil—a roiling pot of many feelings that is bubbling up in also the church—Paul’s call to “accept one another” for the sake of God’s greater glory is bracing. Right now a lot of people I know—including the…
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
When we were younger, we perhaps naively thought that so long as we were sincere and well-intentioned then, even if we made mistakes (as we all do) we could avoid creating any enemies, avoid having anyone who so disliked us as to avoid us in public even as they derided us in private. But then…
2 Kings 6
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider. What do we do with the people we can’t stand? The co-worker who daily makes you look stupid. The classmate who gets the glory for your hard work. The brother-in-law who always has to get his way. Pick up a pop magazine in any grocery checkout lane and you’ll…
Numbers 14
Where does one begin with this story? Do you focus on how an entire people betray their faithfulness Saviour? Do you try to skip over how angry God is about their betrayal? Do you draw upon Moses’ request for Yahweh to forgive as the spot of hope in an otherwise very sad story? For that…
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
This is a tough text to preach, because it is so very personal and situational. It’s all about Paul’s ministry and it is obviously addressed to a specific church (see verse 11, “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians….”). Whenever we preach on an epistle, we are reading someone else’s mail. But this particular pericope…
Preaching Connection: Reconciliation