SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Sixth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 17.22–31 1 Peter 3.13–22 John 14.15–21 It is hard to tell if Paul’s famous speech at the Areopagus is a triumph or a disaster of evangelism. He has done his preparation well – one of the basic rules of preaching. He has walked around the c…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fifth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 7.55–60 1 Peter 2.2–10 John 14.1–14 What are we Christians supposed to feel about the world we live in? All three of today’s readings suggest that, at the very least, the world is not our home. Stephen dies as though death is irrelevant, w…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 36–41 1 Peter 1.17–23 Luke 24.13–35 In his poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’,1 W. B. Yeats pictures a man so consumed with longing for home that even in the middle of a busy street, all he hears is the sound of the lake, more real …
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday of Easter - Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday of Easter - Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 22–32 1 Peter 1.3–9 John 20.19–31 What makes people believe? Probably the reasons are as numerous as the people who give them. Today’s readings provide just a few examples. In the Gospel, we have two sets of responses. First of all…
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 Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fifth Sunday of Lent - Year A Ezekiel 37.1–14 Romans 8.6–11 John 11.1–45 There is a story that St Francis once got up to preach, looked down at the hushed, expectant faces below him and said, ‘God has not given me anything to say to you.’ And with that, he blessed the people,…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Lent - Year A 1 Samuel 16.1–13 Ephesians 5.8–14 John 9.1–41 All the time we are called to try and find the difficult balance between faithfulness to God’s known work in the past, and prophetic discernment of God’s new work now. Faced with a completely new cha…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Lent - Year A Exodus 17.1–7 Romans 5.1–11 John 4.5–42 John is a masterly storyteller, and this story of Jesus and the woman at the well is one of his best. The Samaritan woman comes out of the page, cheeky, brave, vulnerable, and Jesus responds to her with war…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday of Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Lent - Year A Genesis 12.1–4a Romans 4.1–5, 13–17 John 3.1–17 This passage from John’s Gospel is one where we usually just concentrate on the edited highlights, like, for example, the wonderful statement about the freedom and power of the Holy Spirit, or ver…
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…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Sunday Next Before Lent - Year A Exodus 24.12–18 2 Peter 1.16–21 Matthew 17.1–9 What is the purpose of the transfiguration of Jesus? Is it supposed to reassure and confirm or baffle and alarm? And who is it for? Is it for Jesus himself, or for the disciples? Matthew, like Luk…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday Before Lent - Year A Genesis 1.1–23 Romans 8.18–25 Matthew 6.25–34 Today’s Gospel reading reminds us how important it is not simply to take all passages of Scripture and apply them directly to ourselves, as though they had no original context and no intervening …
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany - Year A 1 Kings 17.8–16 1 Corinthians 1.18–31 John 2.1–11 Most of us think we would like the kind of communication with God that Elijah has. The narrator of 1 Kings tells us, very matter-of-factly, that God tells Elijah to do something, and Elijah g…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year A