Fostering conversations about the Church among theologians, pastors, and congregations.
Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34-43
Ps 118
Col 3:1-4 OR 1 Cor 5:6-8 OR 1 Cor 15:19-26
Jn 20:1-9 OR Lk 24:1-12
We didn’t expect this. No matter how many times we’re told the story, we never do. Like Hazel Motes in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, most of us shout to the world through our attitudes and actions – if not necessarily with words – that, “I’m a member and preacher to that church where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way.” Read more
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 1: 4-10
I Corinthians 13
Luke 4: 21-30
There has been a big build up to this Sunday – four weeks of waiting for the birth of Jesus, two weeks celebrating it, marking the Epiphany with the magi and the baptism of Jesus, the performance of Jesus’ first miracle of water turned to wine and finally his reading from the scroll of Isaiah in his home congregation to announce the arrival of God’s jubilee and of God’s Messiah. All eyes are on him now as he launches into his ministry. We have this Sunday only to contemplate what Jesus is up to in this part of his ministry before we leap ahead five chapters and a few years to the Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday and the preparation of Lent for the Paschal and Resurrection. This year, the season of Epiphany is about as short as it can get.
Much as a small section of a hologram contains all that is in the whole, we have such rich texts this coming Sunday that there is enough, more than enough, for our contemplation. Read more