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Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 4 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 4 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 4 Deuteronomy 5: 12-15 2 Corinthians 4: 5-12 Mark 2: 23- 3:6 Today’s passages send out an alarmingly confusing set of messages. On the one hand, Deuteronomy tells us how vital it is to keep the Sabbath, while Jesus seems to suggest that we can sit a bit more lightly to tha…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 25 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 25 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 25 Jeremiah 31.7-9 Hebrews 7.23-28 Mark 10.46-52 Some theologies sound a bit vague about what happens to Jesus after the resurrection. His work is completed, once for all, on the cross, he is vindicated by the Father through the resurrection, and that’s that. Then, dependi…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 24 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 24 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 24 Isaiah 53.4-12 Hebrews 5.1-10 Mark 10.35-45 There is an extraordinary consistency in what the New Testament tells us about the mission of Jesus Christ. At the heart of all the great biblical accounts of why the Son comes and how he saves us is the cross. No New Testamen…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 1 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 1 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 1 Isaiah 40.21–31 1 Corinthians 9.16–23 Mark 1.29–39 Nobody in Corinth had seen it before. Nobody had thought of it. It wasn’t on their mental map, anymore than it is in our world. So when Paul wanted to tell them that as Christians, working out how to live in a pagan en…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Easter Day Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Easter Day Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Easter Day Isaiah 25.6-9 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 John 20.1-18 This Gospel reading is not, as one writer has suggested, ‘a sanitized story about a trip to a garden and a lovely surprise’. If Easter is in any sense the happy ending after a sad story, that is the least important thing…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 10 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 10 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 10 2 Samuel 6.1-5, 12b-19 Ephesians 1.3-14 Mark 6.14-29 Two kings, a thousand years apart, and both in trouble at home. David brings God’s ark into Jerusalem, and is so carried away with dancing and leaping before the Lord that his wife despises him, remembering no doubt t…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 12 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 12 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 12 2 Samuel 11.1-15 Ephesians 3.14-21 John 6.1-21 Think of the Lord’s Prayer while reading Ephesians 3. Paul prays to the Father, from whom all fatherhood ‘in heaven and on earth’ is named, that he will give us . . . all things in Christ, because to him belong the power an…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 4 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 4 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 4 1 Samuel 3.1-10 2 Corinthians 4.5-12 Mark 2.23-3.6 Like a cathedral chorister, Samuel has been brought to live and work in the atmosphere of prayer, worship and pilgrimage. Considering the lively human interest, it’s surprising this story didn’t entice the great classi…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 11 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 11 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 11 2 Samuel 7.1-14a Ephesians 2.11-22 Mark 6.30-34, 53-56 Read 2 Samuel 7 through the eyes of a second-Temple Jew, and watch New Testament theology come into focus. This passage, read messianically at Qumran and elsewhere, fuses together four things. God promises David a p…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Easter Acts 4.32-35 1 John 1.1-2.2 John 20.19-31 ‘Peace be with you’, said Jesus. And again, two verses later, ‘Peace be with you.’ Like a great bell, a single note with multiple overtones, the promise of peace tolls out across the world. Not just an inner pe…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 6 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 6 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 6 1 Samuel 15.34-16.13 2 Corinthians 5.6-10[11-13] 14-17 Mark 4.26-34 Once again the lectionary cuts Paul off just when he’s getting interesting. Next week’s passage starts at 6.1; what happened to 5.18–21, one of Paul’s greatest summaries of his life and thought? However,…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Easter Acts 4.32–35 1 1 John 1.1—2.2 John 20.19–31 The recent popularity of The Lord of the Rings has helpfully given new vitality to the word ‘fellowship’. The people who make up the ‘fellowship of the ring’ are not natural allies. They have little in comm…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Seventh Sunday of Easter Acts 1.15-17, 21-26 1John 5.9-13 John 17.6-19 What would you like people to pray for on your behalf? What is your most usual – truthful – prayer request? Does Jesus’s prayer for his disciples match your expectations in any way? This prayer comes as Je…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 9 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 9 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 9 Ezekiel 2:1-5 2 Corinthians 12: 2-10 Mark 6: 1-13 ‘This passage of 2 Corinthians has caused enormous speculation down the ages. It is tantalisingly full of hints about Paul, which may have made sense to his readers but which we can only fill out with hyperactive imaginin…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 19 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 19 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 19 Mark 8: 27-38 Gaze on a group of men and women, looking forward to supper, walking casually along the road towards Caesarea Philippi. What are they talking about – the weather, perhaps or the latest lovesick comrade, or maybe the political scandal of the continued occup…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 20 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 20 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 20 Mark 9: 30-37 Gaze on the disciples, a ragged band trudging along and always on the move. So often they are confused by their leader, yet always in awe of him and often afraid to ask, afraid to look the fool. Now he’s made that frightening prediction about ending on a v…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 16 Year B