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Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - The Sundays before Lent
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - The Sundays before Lent
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
4 The Sundays before Lent Exploring the text The readings for the Sundays before Lent are, with one exception, taken from the first of Matthew’s five narratives and discourses, which we noted in the Introduction to this book (see pp. 7–8). In fact, they are taken from the most fa…
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - The Sundays before Advent
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - The Sundays before Advent
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
9 The Sundays before Advent Exploring the text During the Sundays leading up to Advent the Lectionary draws our attention to the theme of watching and waiting. It is slightly odd that, although on the fourth Sunday before Advent we have the opening verses of Matthew 24, we do not…
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Easter
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Easter
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
7 Easter Exploring the text The stories of Jesus’ resurrection begin, oddly perhaps to our minds, in the stories of his burial. The accounts of the burial of Jesus’ body are often skipped over as we move from a focus on his death to his resurrection. However, all the Gospel accou…
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Ordinary Time
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Ordinary Time
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
8 Ordinary Time Exploring the text One of the themes of Matthew’s Gospel that recurs over and over again (and especially in the readings that appear during Ordinary Time) is the theme of what it means to be a community, and in particular what it means to be the Jesus community...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 84; 1, 2
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 84; 1, 2
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 84. 1, 2 A primary school in the diocese dedicated to St Luke gave me a bird-box which I have nailed near the tree. I imagine St Luke would approve for he captured vividly the image of Jesus comparing himself with a nesting bird gathering chicks under her wings.
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 149:4
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 149:4
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 149:4 What a glorious place to end! The thought that God takes pleasure in us supplants all those other false notions of God being rather fed up with us. The problem with low self-esteem, which afflicts so many of us, is that we project this on to how God must see us. When …
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 77:3, 6
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 77:3, 6
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 77:3, 6 The walk with God is seldom straight or level. There are dales and vales. The route through them is not always according to God’s mapping. We travel badly sometimes because of our poor sense of moral direction. These journeyings, occasionally with tears, are neverth…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 38:8, 10
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 38:8, 10
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 38:8, 10 The success of those who trample on others with no regard for God or any moral principles can be very confusing for those of us who try to live our life by faith. It’s not unusual for us to make a costly decision in favour of doing what we believe to be right befor…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 86:11-12 The prayer to ‘knit my heart unto thee’ is as poetic as it is profound. Weaving the sinews of our will into the will of God echoes the prayer of Jesus as he faced the cross: ‘Not what I want but what you want’ (Matthew 26.39b nrsv). His example shows us that it is …
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 90:10, 12 This prayer also swims against the tide of our culture where youthfulness is coveted and ageing dreaded. Yet in spite of the worship of agelessness, where the vitamin pills are the sacraments of the day and the workout a religious ritual, we can never escape the i…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 26:1-2 Enough of sin! Here is the portrait of a blameless believer, someone who in all honesty before God cannot point to any wilful act of disobedience. And yet. Even with a conscience clear before God this plaintiff appears to plead with the Judge of all to examine him fo…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 27:9 In St Paul’s famous essay on love he writes about how one day we will see God face to face but for now we see ‘through a glass, darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13.12 kjv). It’s a poetic phrase conveying the original Greek which literally says that we see through a glass not dar…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 24:1, 3, 4 God is the Lord of earth and heaven. The Lord’s Prayer is for the fusion of the two. Asking for God’s will to be done in earth as it is done in heaven is a prayer for the earthing of heaven. The rebellion in the Garden of Eden drove a wedge between the two realms…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 69:21-22 Desolation is when you find yourself estranged from both friends and God. To sense that you are rebuked by God breaks the heart. If ever there were grounds for self-pity then these are they, when no one else will offer you pity or comfort...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 57:8 Whatever we fix on to in the end absorbs us, so much so that we become dependent on it. That dependency becomes a way of life, integrated into our being. It’s as if we were made to be dependent. ‘No man is an island’, and even those loners who seem so independent of ot…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 112:7-8 A sign of the heart established in God is that it does not shrink. Nor is it ‘afraid of any evil tidings’. The reason for this is that ‘unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness’ (v. 4). That light is none other than the mercy of God which rescues us fro…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 28:8