Pentecost 5A

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, July 13, 2014

The Sower. Ancient stained-glass window at Canterbury Cathedral.

The Sower. Ancient stained-glass window at Canterbury Cathedral.

First Reading: Genesis 25:19-34

From now through the end of Pentecost, our First Readings will take us through the Bible’s story of God’s chosen people, from Abraham to Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Joshua. Today’s reading offers two themes: First, God acts to continue the ancestral line, even though Isaac and Rebekah, like Isaac’s parents Abraham and Sarah, thought they were unable to have children. Then, Jacob’s tricks reveal once more that God does not choose unbelievably perfect people, but works through flawed and sinful humans, not unlike us.

First Reading (Track Two): Isaiah 55:10-13

In this reading we hear the concluding verses of the second Isaiah, one of three ancient prophets who theologians believe wrote of the people’s exile to Babylon and eventual return home to Jerusalem, where they would build a restored temple. Having assured the people that God has forgiven their failures of justice, Isaiah now paints a beautiful image of God as the giver of life and sustenance and all that is good. His image of seeds and the sower and Earth’s bounty sets the stage for Jesus’ parable of the Sower that we hear in today’s Gospel.

Psalm: Psalm 119:105-112

One might expect the longest Psalm in the Bible either to celebrate God’s love for us, or to offer joyous thanksgiving for the gifts of life, or to express awe at God’s power to move the world. Psalm 119, however, is quite different. Perhaps originally a temple hymn, this psalm offers praise and thanksgiving for God’s laws. Following God’s decrees brings joy, the psalmist sings, promising to obey them faithfully.

Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14

Today’s Psalm doubles down on Isaiah’s celebration of God the bountiful creator. Perhaps originally sung as a hymn of thanksgiving for the harvest, it rings the praises of God’s bounty for its overflowing richness, and perhaps just as important, for the joy it provides to those who receive it. Surely this seed has been sown on rich, loamy soil and yielded a hundredfold.

Second Reading: Romans 8:1-11

Paul, a proud Pharisee who counted himself as righteous and blameless under the law, the teaching of Torah that the Psalmist celebrated, now tells the Romans that Christ’s resurrection has freed us from the law of sin and death. If we follow the ways of the world, we are subject to sin and death; but when we accept God’s Spirit through Jesus, we gain life and peace. Our mortal bodies gain life because the Spirit dwells in us.

Gospel: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

From today through the rest of Pentecost, our Sunday Gospels will take us through Matthew’s account of Jesus’ teaching through parables. We begin with the parable of the sower, the first told in Matthew and the only parable that Jesus explains. It is tempting to look for specific instruction in the fates of the seeds that fall on the beaten path, on rocks, among thorns, and on fertile ground. Perhaps the message is this simple: Sow God’s word extravagantly, everywhere, and rejoice when it falls on good soil and the harvest is rich. Or perhaps we are told to decide what kind of soil we will be when we hear God’s word. Parables don’t come straight at us. They make us think.

Pentecost 4A

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, July 6, 2014

Rebecca at the Well

Rebecca at the Well, 12th century mosaic at the Cappella Palatina di Palermo.

First Reading: Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

Rebekah’s response to Abraham’s servant reminds us of Abraham’s response to God’s call: Hearing God’s voice, both respond with faithful trust. Abraham uproots his family and moves to a new land. Rebekah leaves home and family to marry Abraham’s son, Isaac, a man she has not yet met, but who will come to love her. Abraham heard God’s promise that his offspring would become “a great and mighty nation”; Rebekah hears that her children will become “thousands of myriads.” Is this woman’s faith any less than that of Abraham?

First Reading (Track Two): Zechariah 9:9-12

The prophet Zechariah, celebrating the people’s return from exile and their hope of restoring the Temple, envisions a humble yet powerful king who will come to reign in peace and restore the nation’s prosperity. Matthew later will find Jesus so clearly foretold in these verses that he adopts the repetition of Hebrew poetry word for word in depicting Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem: “Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Psalm: Psalm 45:11-18

Today’s psalm is a wedding blessing addressed to a princess bride of Tyre, an ancient island kingdom and sometimes rival to Israel. These verses celebrate the pomp and joy in her impending wedding and its hope of lasting remembrance in future generations, a prayer for future blessing that might remind us God’s promise to Isaac and Rebekah.

Second Reading: Romans 7:15-25a

In recent readings, Paul has assured the Romans that as we “die” to our old lives enslaved to sin through baptism, we are “born” to a new life freed from sin through God’s grace. But now Paul admits that it’s not so easy to leave sin behind. Even when his mind wants to do what’s right, Paul confesses, he can’t get rid of the sin that lives within him. He can’t fight sin on his own – and neither can we – without God’s help through Jesus.

Gospel: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Jesus seems frustrated. Preaching to crowds around Capernaum in Galilee, he calls them “children.” He may be irritable because some people who considered ascetic John’s call for repentance crazy and judgmental are now criticizing Jesus’ joyous embrace of life as evidence that he is a glutton and a drunk. But then he pauses and thanks God. Suddenly his hope for Israel’s children and infants turns gentle. Can we sense a little foretaste of the Beatitudes in this, the promise of God’s Kingdom coming to the poor, the meek, the hungry and thirsty, and all who bear burdens and labor under a heavy yoke?

Pentecost 3A

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, June 29, 2014

Juan de Valdés Leal, “Ecce Homo,” oil on canvase, 1657-59

Juan de Valdés Leal, “Ecce Homo.”

First Reading: Genesis 22:1-14

Last week we heard God order Abraham to send his slave, Hagar, and their son, Ishmael, into the desert where they would surely die. Now the story gets even more shocking, as God commands Abraham to slay his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice. What in Heaven’s name is going on here? Perhaps the easy answer is to recognize that these are these are ancient legends, difficult for us to understand in our own context. For the ancients, perhaps the outcome of this story showed that our God does not desire human sacrifice. As Christians, we may also see a God who loves us enough to sacrifice God’s own son … but then to say “no” to death.

Psalm: Psalm 13

At first glance, this Psalm might not seem the best choice to read to someone who is grieving or afraid. The Psalmist speaks from the depths of fear and loss, suffering deep pain. Has God’s face turned away, leaving him alone and defenseless? But even in this dark place, hope remains; for God’s love is steadfast and abiding. God has been just and fair, and the Psalmist trusts that God will remain so.

Second Reading: Romans 6:12-23

Paul takes the idea of slavery and turns it inside out to make his point today. Through Christian baptism we have been spared from the slavery of sin, freeing us to joyously embrace a better kind of slavery, the “enslavement” of willing submission to God through Christ. In this way, Paul writes to the people of Rome, we receive the free gift of grace that brings eternal life.

Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42

As we enter into the long Pentecost season this summer and fall, we will follow Jesus’s footsteps as they are described in the Gospel of Matthew. Today we hear Jesus telling his recently commissioned Apostles about the rewards of following his way. Immediately after his troubling warning that those who follow him must leave friends and family behind, Jesus now echoes the Psalmist’s promise that God will be just and fair. Jesus promises that those who practice justice in his name – even in such small ways as offering water to a child – will receive God’s justice.

Pentecost 2A

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, June 22, 2014

Christ enthroned as an earthly monarch

Christ enthroned as an earthly monarch, from the Book of Kells, Ireland, around 800 CE.

First Reading: Genesis 21:8-21

Even the greatest Bible heroes are hardly plaster saints. From Adam and Eve’s taste for forbidden fruit down through Joseph, Jacob, Moses and King David to doubting Thomas and denying Peter, the great figures in Scripture are just about all flawed and broken; yet God loves them just the same, as God loves us. Today we hear a particularly troubling story about Abraham. Yes, even the patriarch of the Judeo-Christian family was capable of such disturbing behavior as sending his slave, Hagar, and their son, Ishmael, into the desert to die. But God intervened, and promised them a future as bountiful as that of Abraham and Sarah’s own son, Isaac.

Psalm: Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

As our Genesis reading reminds us that God loves us even when we aren’t very nice, the Psalmist sings out the prayerful assurance that God loves us even when we aren’t very happy. Poor and needy, fearing death, the Psalmist cries out, trusting in a good and forgiving God to answer our prayers and make our hearts glad.

Second Reading: Romans 6:1b-11

If this short reading from Paul’s letter to the early church in Rome seems like heavy going, that may be because Paul so intensely wants us to hear his message: In baptism, everything changes, and that’s important! Baptism unites us with Christ so that we share in his death and resurrection. In baptism we symbolically “die” to our old life enslaved by sin. In baptism we are born to a new life, freed from sin through God’s abounding grace, dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus.

Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39

It’s not easy to follow Jesus. The Prince of Peace is bringing a sword? We have to leave our families behind? Well, context is important here. Remember that Matthew is writing in a time of Roman persecution, the destruction of the Temple, and angry rivalry as Jewish Christians and rabbinic Jews wrangled over Jesus’ status as Messiah. In those days, it could be not merely hard but dangerous to follow Jesus. But even in our times, Jesus calls us to give, not to take. That’s a challenge with great rewards.

Trinity Sunday A

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, June 15, 2014

Seventh Day of Creation (from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle)

Seventh Day of Creation (from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle)

First Reading: Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Most Episcopalians probably join the ancient rabbis who edited the Old Testament in recognizing the creation stories of Genesis as the inspiring creation legend of our distant spiritual ancestors, not literal fact. Genesis shows us a monotheistic God as a loving creative force at work in the world. As we celebrate Trinity Sunday, look closely at the opening verses, where we can discern three persons at work in one God: Divine creator; creative Word, and Spirit wind that moves over the waters and makes the world be.

Psalm: Psalm 8

Today’s Psalm beautifully knits together the ideas that we hold up on Trinity Sunday. In it we give praise and thanksgiving for God’s creation. We remember that we hold dominion over God’s earthly creation. We accept that this duty calls us to preserve and protect “the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea.” And finally we worship the majesty of God, our Creator who made it all.

Alternate Psalm: Canticle 13

This week in place of a Psalm we mark Trinity Sunday by singing Canticle 13, “A Song of Praise,” offering praise and exaltation to God as Creator, Son and Holy Spirit. Remember the story of the three young men who danced and sang in defiance of the flames in King Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace? This is what they sang in the Prayer to Azariah, an addition to the book of Daniel in the Apocrypha at the end of the Old Testament.

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Paul closes his second letter to the people of Corinth in the formal style dictated for letters in 1st Century Greek culture. In brief but loving words, he urges this small, often squabbling congregation to sort out their conflicts, pay attention to each other, and love one another as God loves them. He asks this in the name of the Holy Trinity, blessing them with hope for the peace of Jesus, the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit.

Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

Last week, Pentecost Sunday, we heard of the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples in wind and fire, inspiring them to go out to the world and tell the good news of the resurrection and eternal life. Today, on Trinity Sunday, we hear the last verses of Matthew, his only account of the risen Christ, who met the disciples in Galilee and commissioned them to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Pentecost A

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, June 8, 2014

Pentecost - Duccio di Buoninsegna (1308) Tempera on wood. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena.

Pentecost – Duccio di Buoninsegna (1308) Tempera on wood. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

First Reading (also alternate Second Reading): Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost has come, the apostles are gathered to celebrate Shavuot, the Jewish spring harvest festival, and God’s Holy Spirit comes in a rush of wind and tongues of fire! Suddenly the Apostles are shouting out the Good News in many languages, and we recall the resurrected Christ’s promise that they would soon be “baptized in the Holy Spirit,” receiving power to be his witnesses, not only in Jerusalem but to the ends of the earth. Recalling the words of the Prophet Joel, Peter assures the crowd that the Spirit will be poured out for us all.

First Reading (alternate): Numbers 11:24-30

Seven weeks after Easter we celebrate Pentecost, the third major church holiday of the year. On Christmas we remembered the birth of Jesus. On Easter we recall Jesus’ death and resurrection. Pentecost completes the circle with God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, inspiring us to take the Gospel out to the world in Jesus’ name. Today’s first reading tells of God’s spirit empowering Moses and his followers. But the spirit came to Eldad and Medad, too, even though they weren’t there! We don’t control where the Holy Spirit goes, but wherever God’s spirit comes and moves through us, good things can happen.

Psalm: Psalm 104:25-35

Hold up these prophetic words from the middle of today’s Psalm: “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth..” Since the first words of Scripture when God’s spirit breath blew over the face of the waters like a mighty wind and all creation came to be, God’s mighty work of creative world-building continues all around us. Sing! Sing praise to God! Rejoice!

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

Through the Spirit we all are all as one in baptism. Nationality, economic status, gender: None of that matters. Just as the body is made up of different parts that serve different functions, we bring individual gifts as we work together, guided by the Spirit, for the common good. Through it all, Paul assures us, we are all moved by the Spirit as members of the body of Christ.

Gospel: John 20:19-23

Think about how it must have been for the disciples on the first Easter day. Grieving the loss of their leader, they surely felt both wild hope and fearful uncertainty when Mary Magdalene came running in to tell them that the tomb is empty and she met a man in white. “I have seen the Lord!” But how? Why? What does it all mean? Now darkness falls and Jesus is suddenly with them in the locked room. He wishes them peace, shows them his wounds. Then he breathes on them, signaling the presence of the Holy Spirit that will take them … and the church … out into the world.

Gospel (alternate): John 7:37-39

Pentecost is one of the feast days designated as especially appropriate for baptism. Indeed, its alternative name, “Whitsunday,” or “White Sunday,” alludes to the white garments worn by those being baptized. As we gather in Christian community and welcome new members into Christ’s Body in the church, we remember that through Baptism we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Through the living water of baptism our hearts join in pouring out the good news of the Gospel to all the world’s nations.

Christ the King C

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013.

Christ in Judgment

Christ in Judgment

First Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6
The prophet Jeremiah spoke these fierce words of woe to the leaders of Babylon, who were holding Jerusalem and its leaders in exile. He foresaw a mighty new King David restoring the glory of Israel and Judah, the lost kingdoms of the chosen people. It is important for us to understand these ringing verses in their original intent. But it can be reassuring for Christians, too, to see reflected in these words another promise: our hope in Jesus as both good shepherd and mighty king and savior, who reigns over all with justice and righteousness

Psalm: Psalm 46
Even when terrible things happen, God is with us. This assurance offers simple hope, and yet it can be hard to hear. When Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, surely the mountains shook in the heart of the sea as its waters roared and foamed. God does not promise us a world where horrors can’t happen and no one suffers. But even in the worst of times, God is there, inviting us to take refuge in God’s strength. Today’s verse reflects the beauty of our Prayer for Quiet Confidence (BCP p.832): “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Psalm (Track 2): Luke 1:68-79 (Canticle 16, BCP)
Zechariah, a temple priest who God had struck mute for refusing to believe that his elderly wife, Elizabeth, had become pregnant after an angelic visitation, gets his voice back when he holds and names the infant John. The child, he declares, will be a prophet in the tradition of Abraham and Sarah – who also had been blessed with a child through God’s action in their old age. We know that John, the Baptist, will proclaim the fulfillment of God’s covenant in Jesus, who will set us free as our mighty savior.

Second Reading: Colossians 1:11-20
Like Jeremiah and the Psalmist, the author of the letter to the Colossians, too, speaks to a people in trouble, the persecuted Christian community of Colossae in what is now Western Turkey. These verses urge them to endure their difficulties with patience and the strength that comes from God’s glorious power through Jesus, whose incarnation as God in human flesh makes him the first of all creation and the head of the body of the church.

Gospel: Luke 23:33-43
And so we come to the end of Pentecost season and Jesus’s long road to Jerusalem with a Gospel reading that recalls Good Friday … and our hope for Easter and the resurrection! Jesus is crucified, a horrible death reserved for Rome’s most despised evildoers, in the company of criminals. The soldiers and one criminal taunt him as a failed king, while Jesus quietly invites the repentant criminal into a different kind of kingdom, for all humanity and for all time.

Pentecost 28C

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013.

Roman depiction of the destruction of the Temple.

Roman depiction of the destruction of the Temple.

First Reading: Isaiah 65:17-25
Nearing the end of Isaiah’s account of the people’s loss of Jerusalem and the temple, their exile and eventual return, in this reading the prophet celebrates God’s plan for the new Jerusalem as a joy and a delight. A city with no weeping, no distress … no death in childbirth, no pain … joyous lives of 100 years of youthful strength! And, at the end, it is a holy place of peace, where the lion and the lamb rest together and none shall hurt or destroy.

Psalm: Isaiah 12:2-6 (Canticle 9 BCP)
These verses from earlier in Isaiah, read as our Psalm today, are familiar to Episcopalians as Canticle 9 in Morning Prayer. The prophet, foreseeing the destruction of the Temple, nevertheless declares God our stronghold and our sure defense, who can be trusted to save us even in threatening times when we feel frightened and vulnerable.

Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
“Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” Too often we hear this harsh judgment echoed in modern times. In context, this letter, written in Paul’s name in a time of Roman persecution, calls members of a specific church community to pull their fair weight in a battle against an immediate challenge. Nowadays, however, it’s best not to judge, but to humbly heed Jesus’s urgent words in Matthew 23: “Just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

Gospel: Luke 21:5-19
Here’s context for this scary forecast of war and destruction: The evangelist we know as Luke wrote this Gospel to a primarily Gentile audience some 70 years after the Crucifixion and 30 years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. He is telling a known story in the form of a lesson from Jesus, bearing a truth that works as well for us as for Christians in Luke’s own time of persecution: God is with us. Even when we’re betrayed, scorned, hated and hurt, “By our endurance we will gain our souls.”

Pentecost 27C

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013.

Bride and seven brothers

Bride and seven brothers

First Reading: Haggai 1:15b-2:9
We can date these events precisely, as history records King Darius the Great of Persia, pinning Haggai’s narrative to 520 BCE, about five centuries before Christ. Darius was a successor to King Cyrus, who had released the people from Babylonian exile and sent them back to Jerusalem. Haggai (pronounced “Hah-guy”), one of the 12 “minor prophets,” makes clear that the restoration of the city and the Temple wasn’t easy going. But he calls the people to hang on to their courage and faith: Zion’s wealth and grandeur will be restored.

Psalm: Psalm 145
The Psalms cover a broad range of hope, lament, petition and praise, a diverse anthology that seems appropriate for all the ways that God’s people approach the divine in worship and song. Note well that the Psalms culminate with praise. As we near the final songs – this is the 145th Psalm of 150 – we can almost hear resounding chords and choruses as the people raise their voices in awe at God’s wonder. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised!”

Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
This second letter to the Greek community in Thessalonika probably came a generation after the first, perhaps around 100, and was probably written in Paul’s name by a later follower. Early Christians had expected the Second Coming very soon, but many were probably hoping for reassurance by this point, when Christians faced Roman persecution with no sign of Christ’s return. The meaning of “the lawless one” is lost to history, but we can rule out any notion that this prophesies an “anti-Christ” figure in our time.

Gospel: Luke 20:27-38
Jesus and his followers have arrived in Jerusalem now, and the temple authorities would like to find a way to turn Jesus over to the state for execution. Now some Sadducees, who don’t believe in resurrection, try to trip Jesus up with a trick question: When a man who had seven wives dies and goes to heaven, which will be his wife? It may seem that Jesus responds by declaring there is no marriage in heaven, but modern theologians caution against taking this reading beyond its immediate context in this tricky conversation: We can count on eternal life in God, and that’s what matters.

All Saints C

Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Nov. 4, 2013.

The Beatitudes

The Beatitudes

First Reading: Daniel 7:1-3; 15-18
This reading from Daniel, one of the last books in the Old Testament, reads a lot like Revelation. It is apocalyptic literature, a popular genre of that era that the ancients would have immediately recognized as symbolic, not literal description. Four scary beasts, representing powerful empires of earth! In later verses we learn that they were a winged lion, a tusked bear, a four-headed leopard, and an iron-toothed monster with 10 horns. Who wouldn’t be scared by a dream like that? But the nightmare ends with reassurance that God, not horrifying monsters, wins and will reign forever.

Psalm: Psalm 149
In this Psalm of praise for God’s glory, we sing in the assembly of the faithful, praising God with full hearts and voices, knowing that God takes pleasure in God’s people. But then we get those angry verses about swords and vengeance and punishment. What’s up with that? Perhaps it shows us a people burning with the memory of defeat and exile, in a book of songs that show us not only as we ought to be but as we are. Can we learn to love God and our neighbors?

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:11-23
Christ is King, and God has placed him at God’s right hand to rule over us all, the author of Ephesians assures his flock, writing to the persecuted Christians of Asia Minor in Paul’s name. There’s a role for us in this kingdom, too! As the people of God, we are Christ’s body on earth, called to help with the work of building the Kingdom of God.

Gospel: Luke 6:20-31
Ah, the familiar Beatitudes, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, guiding us toward a life of service and love. Well, not quite! That was Matthew’s version. This is Luke’s. It’s a little more edgy, and it asks more of us. These are Christian values as Luke presents them: if you are rich, full and happy, watch out. You’re not doing it right! Give what you have to the poor. Don’t just turn the other cheek but forgive your enemies … and pray for them. As Jesus commands it, “Do unto others” isn’t easy, but it’s essential. It binds us as the people of God.