Divergence on the Lectionary – Passion Sunday, Year A
Because the Passion Narrative for this Sunday is so long, I’m putting a link here so that you can click straight to the Comments and Questions for Discussion if you’d rather do that than scroll and scroll (and scroll). (Click Here for Comments and Questions.) First Reading Isaiah 50:4–9a The Lord GOD has given me […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A
First Reading Ezekiel 37:1–14 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year A
First Reading 1 Samuel 16:1–13 The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” And Samuel […]
Repent
I wrote this some years ago when I was sending out weekly emails to many members of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. Looking it back over during this Lenten season, it still seems to ring. “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and […]
A Fast from Striving
One of the most important things that I ever learned from Graham Cooke was the value of rest. Not naps, although I love naps now that I’m older, but rest. Rest isn’t about being still, although it results in much inner stillness. Rest isn’t about not doing anything. On the contrary, I can be very […]
Receiving Your Inheritance XVIII – 2 Lent, Year A
I remember when my youngest daughter was born. It took a lot longer for the contractions to do their work than I’d expected, but when they had, things started to happen pretty quickly. When Gretchen was born, she was mad. No two ways about it. She hollered at us for two hours straight. (I’d like […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Third Sunday in Lent, Year A
First Reading Exodus 17:1–7 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Second Sunday in Lent, Year A
First Reading Genesis 12:1–4a Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. […]
Let the Women Preach
I recently decided to venture into the wilderness that is Twitter. I had set up an account some years ago and followed a lot of my favorite worship leaders and a few popular preachers, but it had remained dormant for some years. This time, when I crossed the threshold into the Twitterverse, I ran headlong […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – First Sunday in Lent, Year A
First Reading Genesis 2:15–17, 3:1–7 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you […]
Worship – The Redemption of Desire
(This paper is probably more easily read in a PDF format. Here’s A Link to the PDF.) Ever since Michael and I started Preaching Peace, we have struggled with the desire (pun intended) to make what we do practical, to help what we’ve learned in and through the study of Rene Girard’s “Mimetic Theory” to […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
First Reading Exodus 24:12–18 The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain […]
The Stations of the Cross – A Meditation on the Heart of the Father (online)
Introduction I’ve been “doing” the Stations of the Cross for 30 years in different settings. The first sets of Stations I encountered made me sad for Jesus. I cringed as I witnessed His suffering along The Way of the Cross. That just didn’t do it for me. I wanted something more, but I didn’t know […]
New Testament Prophecy
I wrote this back in 2012, but the need for prophets is only greater today, I think… “Eventually, the world will know they’ve met a prophet – a whole community of prophets.” This is the last line of the sermon delivered by the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A (track one)
First Reading Deuteronomy 30:15–20 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then […]
Divergence on the Lectionary – Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
First Reading Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b–12) “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake […]