SPCK
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Breathe
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Breathe
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
When we are born, we are born into a relationship with air, with breathing. How closely the words wind, air, life, and spirit are linked in human thought. We are creatures into whom life is breathed. A word we have for inhaling is inspiration. When we are fully inspired, not only…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Be Embodied
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Be Embodied
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
What does it mean to be embodied? Doesn’t it mean to be given form? We have been gifted with a particular body. It is who we are in part—but not the whole story. Form implies content. And when form and content are wedded, an intrinsic grace emerges where beauty is revealed. To ma…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Palm Sunday Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Palm Sunday Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Palm Sunday Isaiah 50.4–9a Philippians 2.5–11 Mark 14.1—15.47 It is as though there are any number of parallel stories in Mark’s account of the trial and death of Jesus. The characters in each story are largely unaware of the others, though they may interact with each other to so…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fifth Sunday of Lent Jeremiah 31.31–34 Hebrews 5.5–10 John 12.20–33 At last a nice easy covenant. At last, Jeremiah seems to be suggesting, God will give up trying to teach us things and just zap us, changing us so that it becomes natural to us to know God. We won’t need to b…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Lent Numbers 21.4-9 Ephesians 2.1–10 John 3.14–21 The imagination nourished by the Bible immediately springs into action at the mention of snakes. In Numbers, they may be real rather than metaphorical, but that does not prevent them from carrying heavy symbol…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Third Sunday of Lent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Third Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Lent Exodus 20.1-17 1 Corinthians 1.18-25 John 2.13-22 Are Exodus and 1 Corinthians in direct conflict with each other? Do they give wholly irreconcilable pictures of the nature of God and our response to it? The God of the Ten Commandments is, surely, a God w…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Palm Sunday Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Palm Sunday Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Palm Sunday: The Liturgy of the Palms Mark 11.1-11 or John 12.12-16 Gaze on donkeys plodding down arid hillsides in the Middle East or North Africa – they can still be seen today. At first they appear in the distance indistinguishable from the boulders – only their movement betra…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fifth Sunday of Lent John 12.20-30 Gaze on the ways we glorify people in this world. We plaster their faces over our newspapers and report on their every word and their every move. We glorify them with huge salaries and a trail of photographers who follow their every action. …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday of Lent John 3.14-21 Gaze on a dark cellar. You have been trapped inside for ages. It is pitch black in there and there is no switch or bulb hanging overhead to light up your prison. You stumble about feeling the walls, desperate to find a door, or some way out …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Third Sunday of Lent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Third Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Third Sunday of Lent John 2.13-22 Gaze on all that remains of the Temple in Jerusalem. Once a massive edifice with columns of white marble and gates of silver and gold, Herod’s monument was destroyed by the Romans, much as Jesus had predicted. But a fragment remains, which is…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Palm Sunday Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Palm Sunday Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Palm Sunday (Liturgy of the Passion) Isaiah 50.4–9a Philippians 2.5–11 Mark 14.1—15.47 ‘In spite of that, we call this Friday good.’ They didn’t at the time, but Jesus’ surprised friends, and some very surprised enemies, quickly found themselves telling the horrid and brutal tale…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passiontide begins) Jeremiah 31.31–34 Hebrews 5.5–10 John 12.20–33 Imagine the simple request echoing along the corridors of church bureaucracy. It is passed from office to office, from secretary to secretary. It is left on voice-mails and e-mails, faxed…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Lent Numbers 21.4–9 Ephesians 2.1–10 John 3.14–21 The serpent slithers its way through myth and legend, poetry and art. Too potent a symbol to be ignored, some cultures have worshipped it, while others have feared and loathed it. Freud said predictable things…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday of Lent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Lent Exodus 20.1–17 1 Corinthians 1.18–25 John 2.13–22 Jewish jokes testify to the terror of the Ten Words from Sinai. Headache? Do what Moses did: take two tablets. Moses to the people: we’ve got them down from twenty to ten, but adultery is still in. Moses t…
Mark for Everyone - Glossary
Mark for Everyone - Glossary
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone GLOSSARY accuser, see the satan age to come, see present age apostle, disciple, the Twelve ‘Apostle’ means ‘one who is sent’. It could be used of an ambassador or official delegate. In the New Testament it is sometimes used specifically of Jesus’ inner circle of…
Mark for Everyone - Two Extra Endings
Mark for Everyone - Two Extra Endings
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 16.9–20 Two Extra Endings... ...These are the two ‘extra’ endings of Mark. They are not found in the best manuscripts, but are added in to several others in a bewildering variety of ways. The shorter, first one (in double square brackets) doesn’t have a ver…
Mark for Everyone - The Resurrection
Mark for Everyone - The Resurrection
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 16.1–8 The Resurrection... ...Mark’s ending is missing. I am convinced of it. Two of our best manuscripts, both from the fourth century, end where this text breaks off. The alternative endings in several other manuscripts, which I shall deal with in an extr…
Mark for Everyone - The Burial of Jesus