Author: appadmin

18 March 2018
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Lent 5B (RCL)
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Throughout Lent this year, we have been reading instances of God’s covenant with God’s people, beginning with the covenant with Abraham. We arrive at Jeremiah’s vision of a new covenant, when restores the fortunes of the people. This one will be written on the heart. In Deuteronomy (chapter 6), Moses tells the people to write the words of the Shema (Hear, O Israel) on their doorposts, to wear them as frontlets, to teach them to their children and to speak of them both indoors and out. The new covenant will need no such instruction, as all will already know it. Continue reading “Bearing fruit”

11 March 2018
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Lent 4B (RCL)
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesian 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

We all know, many of us by heart, John 3:16 – probably the most translated sentence in human history. But, I’m not sure we know what it is supposed to mean, even to the phrase “eternal life.” In the Greek, it is “the life of the age,” whatever that means. And our usual translations say, “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” What does it mean to believe in the Only Son? The Greek might better be translated “whoever trusts him.” Continue reading “Into the light”

4 March 2018
Third Sunday in Lent
Lent 3B (RCL)
Exodus 20:1-7
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22

John’s Gospel moves the Temple act from the end of Jesus’ ministry to near the beginning. If anything like the Temple act really took place, it seems unlikely that the Roman protectors (oppressors) of Jerusalem would have waited for a trial to crucify the instigator. It makes much more historical sense at the end of Jesus’ ministry, so we are forced to ask why John would move it to the beginning. Continue reading “Get these things out of here!”

25 February 2018
Second Sunday in Lent
Lent 2B (RCL)
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

What the editors of the lectionary choose to leave out as much as what they choose to leave in always puzzles me. In the missing verses of the passage from Genesis, God gives the covenant mark of circumcision. This is a new aspect of the covenant, and so carries some importance. Paul will make much of it in his reading of the Abrahamic covenants. Also, in Mark’s Gospel, the editors chose to leave off the verses at the beginning, in which Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, which frames the whole paragraph that follows. Continue reading “To lose one’s life”

18 February 2018
First Sunday in Lent
Lent 1B (RCL)
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 251-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark a:9-15

The wild beasts in the wilderness as they show up in Mark’s Gospel here pose an interesting puzzle. Why this detail. Most commentators that I can find suggest one of two things – either to intensify the terror of the wilderness, or to suggest the presence of the first human being with the beasts in Eden (or the peaceable kingdom which would recreate that first Edenic state). The word being translated “wild beast” (therion), does indeed occur in the Genesis account of creation. Interestingly, it also occurs in the story of Noah. I think the connection of time-period (forty days) makes this association more likely than the others. Continue reading “Wild beasts”