Jane Williams
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 13 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 13 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 13 Ecclesiastes 1.2, 12–14; 2.18–23 Colossians 3.1–11 Luke 12.13–21 Today’s three readings just are depressing, so brace yourselves. It’s partly because the image of the virtuous life that they present is so obviously unattainable, and partly because they seem to epitomize…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 14 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 14 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 14 Genesis 15.1–6 Hebrews 11.1–3, 8–16 Luke 12.32–40 Faith is sometimes presented as necessarily divorced from evidence. If you can prove something, then you don’t need to have faith to believe it. But that doesn’t seem to be quite what our readings today are saying. They …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 15 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 15 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 15 Jeremiah 23.23–9 Hebrews 11.29—12.2 Luke 12.49–56 Hebrews continues its great description of faith in today’s reading. From Moses down to the relatively recent past in the Maccabean revolts, the author of Hebrews reminds his readers of the story that they have inherited…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 16 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 16 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 16 Isaiah 58.9b–14 Hebrews 12.18–29 Luke 13.10–17 Can the leader of the synagogue hear himself? Has he any idea what he sounds like? You can feel the silence that ripples out of the crowd as their religious leader tries to persuade them that what they have seen is wrong an…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 17 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 17 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 17 Ecclesiasticus 10.12–18 Hebrews 13.1–8, 15, 16 Luke 14.1, 7–14 In this central section of Luke’s Gospel it feels as though Jesus is in a kind of first-century Big Brother. Everything he does and says is being critically watched, sifted, grafted into other people’s fan…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 18 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 18 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 18 Deuteronomy 30.15–20 Philemon 1–21 Luke 14.25–33 Which of your letters would you like preserved for a couple of millennia? Philemon is one of the most ‘domestic’ of the documents of the New Testament, and it is impossible not to read it like an unfinished novel. What ha…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 19 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 19 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 19 Exodus 32.7–14 1 Timothy 1.12–17 Luke 15.1–10 The shepherd and the sweeping woman in Luke’s stories today are not reacting normally. We are not meant to read these stories and think, ‘Ah yes, I would do just that.’ We are supposed to question their values and then reali…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 20 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 20 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 20 Amos 8.4–7 1 Timothy 2.1–7 Luke 16.1–13 Whatever is going on in this strange parable of the dishonest manager? Whichever way you read it, it is confusing. Luke has obviously decided that it is about attachment to wealth, and he has put it with a couple of other stories …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 21 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 21 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 21 Amos 6.1a, 4–7 1 Timothy 6.6–19 Luke 16.19–31 The people who know about these things generally seem to agree that the Pastoral Letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) were not written by the apostle Paul, at least as they now stand. They have all kinds of good reasons for s…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 22 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 22 Habakkuk 1.1–4; 2.1–4 2 Timothy 1.1–14 Luke 17.5–10 This central section of Luke’s Gospel is full of very uncomfortable reading. It starts at 9.51, when Jesus ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’, and the ministry enters a new phase. Now everything he says and does is bein…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 23 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 23 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 23 2 Kings 5.1–3, 7–15c 2 Timothy 2.8–15 Luke 17.11–19 The story of Naaman has got everything. To begin with, the hero is a thoroughly likeable character. (Well, I suppose you could argue that Elisha is the real hero of the story, and no one could call him exactly likeable…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Last Sunday After Trinity Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Last Sunday After Trinity Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Last Sunday After Trinity Jeremiah 14.7–10, 19–22 2 Timothy 4.6–8, 16–18 Luke 18.9–14 A disciple’s tale: He told another of his stories today. I love his stories – they were one of the things that made me decide to follow him, really. I just couldn’t bear to miss any of them.…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 24 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 24 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 24 Genesis 32.22–31 2 Timothy 3.14—4.5 Luke 18.1–8 This odd little parable in Luke gives us the key to all of today’s readings: they are about faithful endurance. The story of the judge and the woman is vivid and full of little ironies. The contrast is set up between the j…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday Before Lent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Isaiah 1.10–18 2 Thessalonians 1.1–12 Luke 19.1–10 The temptation with today’s three readings is to go straight for the story of Zacchaeus. It’s warm, vivid and has a happy ending. But the other two readings remind us that Zacchaeus’ choice is not …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday Before Advent Job 19.23–7a 2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17 Luke 20.27–38 The book of Job has always inspired strong feelings – hardly surprising, as its themes are suffering and justice. At the heart of the many paradoxes that belief in the God of the Bible presents…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday Before Advent Malachi 4.1–2a 2 Thessalonians 3.6–13 Luke 21.5–19 The material in today’s reading from Luke can be found in a very similar form in Mark 13 and Matthew 24, and all are agreed that the temple is the trigger for these terrible sayings. Jesus seems to…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Today’s passages might, on a superficial reading, simply be making the fairly standard point that Christ’s kingship and authority are a challenge to most human understandings of power. That’s a good and important po…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 12 Year C