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Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 22 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 22 Lamentations 1.1–6 2 Timothy 1.1–14 Luke 17.5–10 Paul, in prison, writes about power. Dangerous stuff, we say – tends to corrupt, and all that. Paul’s setting, and the work that got him there, guards him from misunderstanding. Tyrants speak of God’s power to validate th…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 23 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 23 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 23 Jeremiah 29.1, 4–7 2 Timothy 2.8–15 Luke 17.11–19 A sharp-edged summary of Paul’s gospel: King Jesus, raised from the dead, of David’s seed. The word ‘gospel’ itself, in Paul’s world, meant a royal proclamation; this explains why its heralds fall foul of the authorities…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 24 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 24 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 24 Jeremiah 31.27–34 2 Timothy 3.14—4.5 Luke 18.1–8 The passages from 2 Timothy and Luke 18 both envisage God’s people hanging on, sustaining their energy and sense of direction, even though things seem to go from bad to worse. By contrast, Jeremiah 31 sees through the lon…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 3 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 3 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 3 Genesis 45.3–11, 15 1 Corinthians 15.35–38, 42–50 Luke 6.27–38 The resurrection is central to Christianity, not just as a dogma but as a driving principle. Unfortunately, Paul’s writing in this, the earliest discussion of it, is dense and difficult, and some of the regul…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 4 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 4 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 4 1 Kings 18.20–21 [22–29] 30–39 Galatians 1.1–12 Luke 7.1–10 Elijah calls for fire, but the larger story is about rain. Drought has plagued the land. King Ahab is cross with Elijah, blaming the messenger for the message. Elijah, fresh from his triumph in restoring a boy t…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 5 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 5 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 5 1 Kings 17.8–24 Galatians 1.11–24 Luke 7.11–17 Luke has, fairly obviously, told the story of the widow’s son at Nain in such a way as to evoke the similar story of Elijah and the widow’s son at Zarephath – who, interestingly, was already referred to in Jesus’ ‘Nazareth m…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 6 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 6 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 6 1 Kings 21.1–21a Galatians 2.15–21 Luke 7.36—8.3 ‘He loved me and gave himself for me.’ These words in Galatians 2.20, coupled with those in 1.4, probably form the earliest written statement of what we know as the doctrine of the atonement. They invite comment at sever…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 7 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 7 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 7 1 Kings 19.1–15a Galatians 3.23–end Luke 8.26–39 Elijah went to Sinai, to hand back his commission. ‘I’ve done all this for you, and now they’re going to kill me. I’ve had enough.’ Fear and exhaustion generated self-destructive depression. What was he expecting? A volcan…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 8 2 Kings 2.1–14 Galatians 5.1, 13–25 Luke 9.51–end ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead.’ One of Jesus’ starkest commands, this flies in the face of the sacred Jewish obligation to attend to the burial of one’s father ahead of all other duties, even saying one’s daily praye…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 9 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 9 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 9 2 Kings 5.1–14 Galatians 6.1–16 Luke 10.1–11, 16–20 Going out like lambs amid wolves hardly makes sense in any culture. Only Jesus could propose something so apparently hare-brained yet strangely powerful. Only he, knowing himself to be utterly vulnerable, yet protected …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 11.1–18 Revelation 21.1–6 John 13.31–35 You only discover the flavour of today’s Gospel if you remember that it comes immediately after Judas’s departure, and immediately before Peter’s rash promise to lay down his life for Jesus – and Jesus’ sorro…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passiontide begins) Isaiah 43.16–21 Philippians 3.4b–14 John 12.1–8 Two stark characterizations from John: the full-blown devotion of Mary and the brooding cynicism of Judas. (On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I think this may perhaps be the same story …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 33.14–16 1 Thessalonians 3.9–13 Luke 21.25–36 It is January, ad 69. You are a Greek-speaking Christian in a Roman town in Turkey. You are deeply anxious about the fierce war in Judaea: the Romans have laid siege to Jerusalem; the city faces sta…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Christmas 1 Samuel 2.18–20, 26 Colossians 3.12–17 Luke 2.41–52 The boyhood stories of Jesus and Samuel jar slightly with one another. Samuel’s mother deliberately takes him to the Temple in order to leave him there; Jesus’ parents intend to take him home, but …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Epiphany Isaiah 43.1–7 Acts 8.14–17 Luke 3.15–17, 21–22 We now have the middle of Luke 3 for the second time in four weeks, and verses 19–20 are still missing. This mightn’t matter so much if they didn’t relate as closely as they do to the underlying themes of…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Lent Deuteronomy 26.1–11 Romans 10.8b–13 Luke 4.1–13 These readings are not about ‘temptation’ so much as about true worship. Jesus recognized his temptations as distractions from worshipping and trusting the one true God. To see temptation in terms of rules w…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Isaiah 1.10–18 2 Thessalonians 1.1–12 Luke 19.1–10 Luke cuts Zacchaeus even more down to size, describing him with affected pomposity (‘he was a chief tax-collector! He was rich!’) and then pointing out that he was also a bit too small for his own …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year C