Author: appadmin

27 March 2016
Easter Sunday
Easter C (RCL)
Isaiah 65:17-25
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18

Easter Sunday feels like the culmination of the Triduum, the great three days. On Thursday and Friday, we are living in to preparation for the great feast. But the readings for Easter Sunday always feel a little anticlimactic. I’m left wondering “now what?” Continue reading “Journeying into Easter”

20 March 2016
Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion
Passion Sunday Year C (RCL)
Luke 19:28-40
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 22:14 — 23:56

Luke modifies Mark’s passion story in some fairly significant ways. He adds the trial before Herod, which occurs in neither Mark nor Matthew. He adds the lament over Jerusalem (19:41-44). In his account of the last supper, he includes a cup of wine both before and after the meal. These and many other details open interesting questions to ask of Luke. Continue reading “Entering Jerusalem”

13 March 2016
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Lent 5C (RCL)
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8

Each of the Gospels has a story of a woman anointing or washing Jesus’ feet or head. In Mark’s Gospel, it is an anonymous woman at a banquet at the house of Simon the leper. She pours the spike nard on Jesus’ head. Matthew leaves the story in essentially Marcan form. Luke changes it somewhat. Jesus is at a banquet at the home of Simon the Pharisee, and an unnamed woman woman washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. Simon wonders that Jesus does not know what sort of woman she is, and Jesus scolds Simon because the woman has proved a better host than Simon. The story becomes clearer when we realize that the flute girls who often danced at banquets would have had their hair down (and other women weren’t likely to attend banquets). That’s why Paul admonishes women not to come to a banquet without their hair covered. He didn’t want them confused with the entertainment. Continue reading “Anointing Jesus’ feet”

6 March 2016
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Lent 4C (RCL)
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

This is a bit of a hurried entry – lots going on this week.

A younger brother (if there were two brothers) would have stood to inherit a third of his father’s property. The elder brother would inherit two thirds. When Esau sold his birthright, he was selling his claim on that extra portion of Isaac’s property. The blessing was something else.

When Luke’s (Jewish) readers heard this story, their minds would have gone back to all of the old stories of elder and younger brothers. Continue reading “Do we need God?”

28 February 2016
Third Sunday in Lent
Lent 3C (RCL)
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

In the RCL, we read the great stories of God’s redemption of God’s people in the Old Testament in course (sort of). Last week, we heard of the covenant which God made with Abram, so that Abram might know his progeny would inherit the land. Now, we skip over the whole story of Joseph, and find Moses exiled from Egypt, keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro in the wilderness. He encounters the burning bush that is not consumed, and receives his vocation from God. Continue reading “Unless you also repent”

21 February 2016
Second Sunday in Lent
Lent 2C (RCL)
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35

This Sunday’s lectionary includes a couple of puzzling readings. The ritual portrayed in the Genesis reading has no real analog anywhere else in the Old Testament, and the reading from Luke’s Gospel raises questions about Jesus’ relationship to the Pharisees, and Jerusalem’s relationship to prophets. Continue reading “Jerusalem, Jerusalem”

3 January 2016
Second Sunday after Christmas
II Christmas C
Jeremiah 31:7-17
Psalm 84
Ephesians 1:3-6; 15-19a
Luke 2:41-52

The collect for this Sunday is one of my favorites in the BCP. God has wonderfully created and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature, and invites us to share the divine life of Christ, who has shared our nature. This is divinization in a nutshell. And as we participate in the Incarnation, we draw the whole cosmos with us.

We don’t often hear liturgically the story of Jesus at twelve in the temple. Continue reading “My father’s house”

20 December 2015
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Advent IV C (RCL)
Micah 5:2-5a
Canticle 15
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-55

Our image of Mary has been profoundly affected by Christmas carols and by a history of iconography, particularly in the medieval West. We see Mary bathed in a gentle light, serenely looking at her child, lying in a manger, with a faint nimbus around his head (and often around hers). Luke’s version of Mary doesn’t quite match our vision. Continue reading “Mary as prophet”

20 December 2015
Third Sunday of Advent
Advent IIIC (RCL)
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Canticle 9
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

A quick read of Luke’s account of the preaching of John the Baptist shows up noticeable similarities to the account in Matthew (most likely from the common source Q). Luke and Matthew share the reference to the brood of vipers, the warning to flee from the wrath to come, language about bearing fruit worthy of repentance, the ax at the root of the tree, and the reference to the mightier one who is coming who baptizes in spirit and fire (judgment and power). But there are also remarkable differences. In Luke, the brood of vipers comment is addressed to all the people, not just Pharisees.

And then Luke inserts John’s specific instructions to those who ask, “What should we do?” Continue reading “Overcoming fear”

22 November 2015
Last Sunday after Pentecost
The Reign of Christ
Proper 29B (RCL)
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

In the wake of recent events (attacks in Beirut, Paris and the backlash against Syrian refugees in this country and around the world), I have been wondering about the ideological advantages of fear. I think I can figure out the evolutionary advantages of fear: individuals who retreat from or conquer threats are more likely to survive and pass on their genetic memory to future generations. I question, however, the advantage of fear for the survival of the species as a whole. Fear, I suppose, makes it easier to enforce group loyalty, and prevent defection. The Washington Post published an article that points out that Daesh (ISIS is not a state) practices terrorism precisely to get “us” to respond in fear, in order to drive the wedge between “us” and “them” deeper, and force Muslims into radicalism in response to “our” fear. Continue reading “What is truth?”