John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Christmas 2C
George Beasley-Murray describes this second half of the gospel of John’s prologue as an echo of the Exodus narrative, particularly verses 14-18. As the Israelites made their exodus from slavery in Egypt by the salvific passover work of God through the prophet Moses, they entered the wilderness full of unknown and were challenged to come…
Luke 2:41-52
Christmas 1C
We know where to find him. That’s the sense I keep coming back to with this lone story about Jesus as a teenager. Maybe it’s the stage of life I’m in. Maybe it’s world events and how some of us seem to have lost the plot on what it means to be a Christian. Maybe…
Mark 1:1-8
Advent 2B
[…] on, Mark, go back, get back to angels and shepherds and stars and stables and mangers and all that good stuff. This is Advent not Epiphany. It’s Christmas, for pete’s sake, and the last place we want to be in December is in the middle of some dry, dusty wilderness where someone is screaming […]
Luke 2:22-40
Christmas 1B
We have a number of characters in this story. There’s the rather passive Jesus, who is brought to the Jerusalem for a dedication by Mary and Joseph. Then there’s Simeon and Anna, seemingly fixtures of the temple community. What links all of these characters is one trait: piety. Specifically, each participant’s piety is borne from…
Psalm 148
Christmas 1B
No moment on the annual calendar gets more associated with popping champagne corks than New Year’s Eve. So it is appropriate that on this last Sunday and day of 2023 the Lectionary directs us to Psalm 148, which is in its own way a fizzing and frothing bottle of champagne in word form. It is…
Psalm 148
Christmas 1A
Some years back at a worship service we used St. Francis of Assisi’s poem “Canticle of the Sun” as part of a responsive reading. There was, alas, a slight typo in the bulletin that made it sound at one point as though we were worshiping Mother Earth. This led a rather conservative member of my…
Ephesians 1:3-14
2nd Sunday after Christmast C
Few Scripture passages are theologically weightier than this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. In fact, in an earlier commentary on it, Scott Hoezee remembers once asking the congregation he served about how it would feel if he were from then to on base every sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14. He notes that while most would call it a…
Psalm 147:12-20
2nd Sunday after Christmast C
As we lurch into 2022 after another difficult year globally, we realize with a sense of startlement that we are technically now entering Year 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic. A couple years ago not a few of us hoped the worst of it would not last 3 weeks. Even 3 months seemed hard to fathom. …
Colossians 3:12-17
1st Sunday after Christmas C
Commentators use a variety of terms to describe this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s set of ethical commands. Leonard Klein calls it a “haustafel, a table of duties for those in various estates.” Elsewhere I have called it “the Christian’s wardrobe.” Yet no matter how its proclaimers label Colossians 3’s set of invitations to Christ-likeness, there can…
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Advent 4A
On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, just a week away from Christmas, it is easy to imagine those shepherds already in the fields keeping watch over their sheep, completely unaware of what is going to happen to them in just a few days. But we can’t go there yet. It is not Christmas yet; […]
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