Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Feb. 23, 2025 (Epiphany 7C)


Joseph recognized by his brothers (1863), oil painting on canvas by Léon Pierre Urbain Bourgeois (1842-1911). Musée de la Faïence et des Beaux-Arts, Nevers, France. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Throughout Sunday’s readings, we hear a clear  call to listen for God and to forgive even those who have hurt us. So it is with Joseph in our first reading. Sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers, Joseph rose through difficulties to become a chief advisor to Pharaoh. Now Joseph’s brothers, who have come to Egypt to escape a famine at home, find Joseph elevated to this powerful position. They are terrified, fearing their brother’s revenge, but Joseph forgives them amid tears and kisses.

Psalm: Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42

Trust in God and do good, the Psalmist urges the people. Don’t worry about evildoers or envy those who do wrong: They won’t last. But those who follow God’s ways will receive their heart’s desire. As we sing these verses, notice the parallels with Jesus’s instructions in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain: Be patient. Don’t strike out in anger. These things only lead to evil. Trust in God, rather, knowing that the meek shall inherit the land. Wait for God with patience and confident trust. Follow God’s ways and be rewarded.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50

In the passage we read this Sunday, Paul continues his extended theological reflection on resurrection and how it works. He sets up an opposing question, asking what kind of body the resurrected will have; then he shouts “Fool!” at his imagined debating opponent. Using the example of seeds and sowing as a metaphor, he observes that seeds of grain cannot come to life as plants unless they first die by being sown in the earth. Just as God then gives each kind of seed its own body, Paul says, so it is with resurrection: Our physical bodies perish, but what is raised cannot perish. Just as Adam, the first human, came from dust, but Christ, like a second Adam, came from heaven,  in resurrection we will bear Christ’s image.  

Gospel: Luke 6:27-38

This week we hear more of Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain as told by Luke, and its reversal of expectations continues in a more edgy and even challenging interpretation of Jesus’s words than we hear in Matthew’s Beatitudes. Moving from the blessings for those who suffer and the woes for those who revel in riches, Jesus now poses a difficult, counterintuitive challenge: Love our enemies and do good to those who hate and hurt us, doing to others as we would have them do to us. Jesus goes on to make clear that practicing this Golden Rule is not to be done in hope of reward: “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. … But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.”

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Feb. 16, 2025 (Epiphany 6C)

The Evangelist Luke (15th century), as imagined by a Greek Orthodox icon writer. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Jeremiah 17:5-10

The cursed and the blessed, the wicked and the righteous, the doubters and the believers, and the woeful and the blessed: Sunday’s readings seem to portray a world forever divided. Listen closely, though, and hear a more hopeful narrative in which trust in God is amply rewarded. In our first reading, the Prophet Jeremiah separates the cursed – those who turn away from God toward trust in mortals and must wither and die – from the blessed: those who trust in God and so will be deeply rooted and nourished like plants near water.

Psalm: Psalm 1

Does the first of the 150 Psalms set a theme for the entire book of Psalms? Psalm 1 echoes the covenant that God gave to Moses, singing praise for righteousness and its rewards while warning about the dangers of following the ways of the wicked. Using metaphors that echo Jeremiah’s division of humankind in the first reading, the Psalmist promises delight for the righteous, who will thrive and bear fruit like trees planted near water. But there’s no joy for the wicked, the prophet declares: They will be doomed like chaff that the wind blows away from the good wheat.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Paul continues working out his theology of salvation through Christ’s resurrection in the closing chapters of First Corinthians. Written at least a generation before Mark, the first of the Gospels, Paul’s words offer a glimpse of the infant Christian community’s ideas largely through an oral tradition about the adult ministry of Jesus that had occurred only about 20 years before. In this passage, Paul challenges those who doubt that Christ’s resurrection means that we, too, are freed from the fear of death. If Christ was not raised, Paul tells his Corinthian congregation, then our faith has been in vain and our sins have not been forgiven. But Christ truly was raised from the dead, Paul assures them: He is the first fruit of all who die and will now live again.

Gospel: Luke 6:17-26

It is interesting to compare Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Plain with Matthew’s perhaps more familiar Sermon on the Mount. In Luke’s telling, Jesus comes down from a mountain where he has spent the night to a level place where he teaches his just-chosen disciples and a huge crowd of followers. The series of beatitudes or blessings that he offers them sound a more edgy tone than Matthew’s version: Each blessing is followed by a contrasting woe. The actual poor are blessed, in contrast with Matthew’s “poor in spirit.” The hungry are blessed, and those who weep and those who are reviled. Then we hear Jesus declaring woe on the rich, those who are full of food and wealth, those who laugh as they receive constant praise. This liberating preference for the poor and downtrodden is a constant subtext through Luke. We’ve already heard it in his stories of the Song of Mary and Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown, and we will continue hearing it all the way to the Cross.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Feb. 9, 2025 (Epiphany 5C)


The Miraculous Draft of Fishes (1308-1311), tempera painting on wood by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319). Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana del Duomo, Siena, Italy. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8

God’s call to serve is a command so powerful that it is difficult to resist. In Sunday’s Lectionary readings we see this at work in God’s call to the Prophet Isaiah; the Psalmist’s conversation with a faithful God; Paul’s call as an apostle of Christ, and Jesus calling his apostles at the Sea of Galilee. In our first reading, Isaiah is granted a terrifying vision of a gigantic God on a throne surrounded by six-winged seraphim. This vision is so majestic that Isaiah fears for his life, declaring himself an unworthy creature of unclean lips. But God sends a seraph to touch Isaiah’s lips with a hot coal, burning out his sin. Isaiah then eagerly accepts God’s call, responding faithfully, “Here I am! Send me!”

Psalm: Psalm 138

Psalm 138, a hymn of thanksgiving, reminds us that communication with God can be a two-way conversation: God responds when we call, the Psalmist tells the people. God loves us and is faithful. We often pray when we’re in need. In time of trouble and fear, we call out in our helplessness and beg God to come to our aid. Although the kings of Earth praise God, God cares for us, the lowly: God keeps us safe when we walk in the midst of trouble. The love of the Lord endures forever, the Psalmist sings. God will not abandon the works of God’s hands.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

We have come to the final chapters of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Turning to the good news of Christ’s resurrection, Paul places it in the center of Christian theology: Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, and was then seen by the Apostles and by hundreds of followers. Acknowledging his own unfitness to serve Christ because he had persecuted the church, Paul declares himself the least of the apostles, the last to see Christ, but now forgiven in spite of his sins. Paul was not chosen to serve thanks to his own merits, he says, but through God’s saving grace that comes through the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Gospel: Luke 5:1-11

Encountering a huge crowd near the lake of Gennesaret (Galilee), Jesus got into a boat owned by a fisherman named Simon so he could address the people from offshore. When Jesus finished teaching the crowd, he told Simon to head for deep water and put out his fishing nets. Simon was doubtful, knowing that they had come up empty after fishing all night. But he trusted Jesus, and to his surprise, caught more fish than the nets could hold. Peter, in a response that might remind us of Isaiah’s fearful plea to God, dropped to his knees and told Jesus to leave him, a sinful man. Jesus told him not to be afraid; and then, when Jesus called Simon and his partners James and John, they eagerly left everything behind and followed him.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Jan. 26, 2025 (Epiphany 3C)

Christ teaching in the synagogue (1878-1879), oil painting on canvas by Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879). National Museum in Warsaw, Poland. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Torah – understood as God’s teaching, so holy and beloved that we understand it as law – informs our readings for the Third Sunday of Epiphany. In our first reading, the minor prophet Nehemiah tells about the scribe Ezra reading the Torah to all the people of Jerusalem. They have finally returned home after the exile, but must regain familiarity with Israel’s written tradition. Ezra opens the Torah scroll and spends an entire morning reading and interpreting the text. It is a holy moment as the people, understanding the text perhaps for the first time, weep with joy at this revelation.

Psalm: Psalm 19

In its opening verses, Psalm 19 sings the glory of God. Then its narrative turns to sing the glory of God’s law, Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, in which God’s covenant with the people is expressed and set in context. These are the holy scrolls that the scribe Ezra read to the community in Sunday’’s first reading – and that Jesus will read and interpret in the synagogue in Sunday’s Gospel.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

This week’s passage from 1 Corinthians immediately follows and builds upon last Sunday’s reading, in which we heard Paul declare that every member of the community brings individual gifts and is called to use those gifts in support of the church. Now Paul likens the people of the church to the body of the risen Christ in the world. Each part of the body is needed. Every part is important, and all of them have to work together. The eye, the hand, the ear, the leg … none can go it alone.

Gospel: Luke 4:14-21

Jesus’s public ministry has begun. Driven by the Spirit that came down at the time of his baptism, he has been tested in the desert, preached and taught in Galilee, and now he returns to the synagogue in his childhood home, Nazareth. Unrolling the Torah scroll to the Prophet Isaiah, he reads verses that will define his mission, ideas that echo his mother’s song and God’s covenant with the people at Sinai. This scripture is fulfilled in him, he declares. He has come to bring good news to the poor and the oppressed, and to declare the year of Jubilee in which slaves are freed and debts are forgiven.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Jan. 19, 2025 (Epiphany 2C)


The Marriage Feast at Cana (1500), oil painting on wood panel by Juan de Flandes (1450-1519). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Isaiah 62:1-5

As we go through this liturgical season, we hear a series of “epiphanies” that manifest the divinity of Jesus to the world. Sunday’s Gospel tells of Jesus’s first miracle as told by John: changing water into wine for the wedding celebration at Cana. Sunday’s first reading comes from the final chapters of the Book of Isaiah. The exile is over. The people have returned to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, where the ruins of the first temple lie in rubble, and a long, hard time of rebuilding lies ahead. “I will not keep silent … I will not rest,” proclaims the prophet. In words that set the scene for the Gospel’s wedding feast, Isaiah imagines Zion and the people as a bride and groom united in joy.

Psalm: Psalm 36:5-10

The passage selected for Sunday’s Psalm starts at verse 5, discreetly passing over several discouraging verses. We avoid hearing the psalmist lament the pain of being surrounded by wicked and deceitful people who fear neither God nor evil. Rather, we enter just as the song turns from sadness to chords of hope. In contrast with human wickedness, we sing, God showers us with amazing grace and abundant love. God’s protection and faithfulness come to us all, in that day and in this day.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

The second readings for the Epiphany season this year treat us to selections from three particularly beautiful chapters from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. This Sunday and next, we’ll hear Paul imagining the people of God as Christ’s body, with each member of the church enjoying certain gifts and being responsible for particular duties, much as each part of one’s physical body has its own function. The Christian community at Corinth, in Greece, probably consisted of fewer than 100 people; but it had plenty of issues with differences of opinion, arguments, and cliques that called for Paul’s pastoral voice in this letter sent to them from far away. It can be helpful to read 1 Corinthians through this lens.

Gospel: John 2:1-11


In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus met John the Baptist, was baptized, and assembled his twelve apostles. Now, in Chapter 2, they go out into the world. Their first stop is at a lively wedding feast, where John paints a picture of a gathering in which the wine flowed so freely that the host’s supplies quickly ran dry. When Jesus’s mother calls on him to save the situation, he complies somewhat grudgingly, turning water into new wine that’s much better than the old. This first of Jesus’s miracles (or “signs” as John calls them to highlight their broader significance) occurs at a social event of feast and fellowship, where this sign, John tells us, “revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”