Lectionary Reflections Year A - The First Sunday of Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The First Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The First Sunday of Lent - Year A Genesis 2.15–17; 3.1–7 Romans 5.12–19 Matthew 4.1–11 The devil, we are told, is the father of lies. Here, in the wilderness, or in Eden, what is on offer is nothing but lies. Look at the cunning of the tempter. First of all, the really basic appr…
Gazing on the Gospels Year A - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year A
Gazing on the Gospels Year A - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Seventh Sunday of Easter - Year A Meditation on John 17: 1-11 Gaze on some of the earliest Christian paintings, the third-century frescos in the catacombs of Rome. On the wall of the catacomb of Priscilla is depicted a Christian worshipping God – standing upright with a praye…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Epiphany - Year A Isaiah 9.1–4 1 Corinthians 1.10–18 Matthew 4.12–23 Corinth in the first century was a busy, loud, exciting place. It had been a reasonably wealthy trading centre for a couple of centuries at least, and that had attracted people of many religi…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The First Sunday of Epiphany - Year A Isaiah 42.1–9 Acts 10.34–43 Matthew 3.13–17 Matthew’s is the only Gospel that shows any embarrassment about Jesus’s baptism by John the Baptist. In all of the Gospels, John knows that his baptism is a temporary measure, but he also knows that…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Easter Sunday Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Easter Sunday Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Easter Sunday - Year A Jeremiah 31.1–6 Colossians 3.1–4 John 20.1–18 Real life is something so unusual that we can barely recognize it. Occasionally, we get a glimpse of it and it touches us with awe: the birth of a baby, for example, or listening to a perfectly performed piece o…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A Jeremiah 31:7–14 Ephesians 1:3–14 John 1:1–18 . It is very difficult, in the middle of the school run or the supermarket shop, to remember that in us God is fulfilling the whole purpose of creation. It is even more difficult to look at the …
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
?Christmas Eve/Christmas Day - Year A Isaiah 9:2–7 Titus 2:11–14 Luke 2:1–20 Luke starts what is to be one of the world’s most famous narratives on the world stage, as it is traditionally recounted. He starts with emperors and governors, who are, after all, the people who make hi…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Day of Pentecost Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Day of Pentecost Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Day of Pentecost Genesis 11.1–9 Acts 2.1–21 John 14.8–17 The story of the Tower of Babel continues the theology of sin that is found in Genesis 2 and 3, in the story of the Fall. Eve and Adam’s desire to seize for themselves a knowledge that properly belongs to God alone is at th…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christmas Day/Christmas Eve Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christmas Day/Christmas Eve Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christmas Day/Christmas Eve Isaiah 52.7–10 Hebrews 1.1–4 John 1.1–14 What difference would it make if the Christmas story were not true? If God had not come to be born, live and die as a human being? Today’s readings shout out that the Christmas story is the key to what the world…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 15 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 15 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 15 Isaiah 56.1, 6–8 Romans 11.1–2a, 29–32 Matthew 15.10–28 This strange story of the Canaanite woman clearly scratches an itch for Matthew’s readers. If you put this version and Mark’s version side by side (Mark 7.24–30), you w…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 14 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 14 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 14 1 Kings 19.9–18 Romans 10.5–15 Matthew 14.22–33 There is something about us that is deeply resistant to the grace of God. It’s not that we don’t believe in him, or wish to follow him, or that we consciously reject him, but w…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 15 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 15 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 15 Proverbs 9-1-6 Ephesians 4. 25-5.2 John 6: 35, 41-51 ‘You are what you eat’, so the saying goes. Our modern western culture is wise to the fact that food is not all the same, and will not all be good for you. We are now very anxious about food additives, very aware of p…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 13 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 13 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 13 Exodus 16. 2-4, 9-15 Ephesians 4. 1-16 John 6: 24-35 This is a very revealing set of questions and answers between Jesus and the people following him. It tells us a lot about what the people thought they were looking for in Jesus, and gives us one of Jesus’s own central…
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 Reflections - Year B - Proper 14 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 14 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 14 1 Kings 19-4-8 Ephesians 4. 25-5.2 John 6: 35, 41-51 On the grounds that there is no point in telling someone to do something if they are already doing it, the Ephesian community must be quite like a church you know well. It is interesting how much of this section is co…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 16 Year B