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Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Lent - Year A Genesis 1.1—2.3 Romans 8.18–25 Matthew 6.25–34 The project was all set up and ready to go. Creation was more like a perfect studio than a finished painting; everything was there, paints, canvas, artist, and all. It had its own inbuilt rhythm…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Christ the King Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Christ the King Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
First Sunday Before Advent - Christ the King Ezekiel 34.11–16, 20–24 Ephesians 1.15–23 Matthew 25.31–46 ‘I will be their shepherd,’ declares God to exiled Israel. ‘I will be their God,’ he says a bit later, ‘and David my servant shall be their shepherd.’ All right, we reply to Ez…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Pentecost Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Pentecost Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Day of Pentecost - Year A Numbers 11.24–30 Acts 2.1–21 John 7.37–39 Jesus, quoting Scripture, says that rivers of living water will flow out of the believer’s heart. But no Old Testament text says exactly that. Which Scripture is he referring to, then? Isaiah 55, of course, i…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 11 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 11 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 11 Genesis 28.10–19a Romans 8.12–25 Matthew 13.24–30, 36–43 To get the full flavour of the Pauline passage, hold in your mind the story of the children of Israel on their way through the wilderness, having left Egypt but not …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 2 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 2 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 2 - Year A Deuteronomy 30.15–20 1 Corinthians 3.1–9 Matthew 5.21–37 A real choice with real consequences. The great temptation today is not so much to cast off all moral restraint – few would actually advocate that, though many act from time to time as though that were the…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 9 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 9 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 9 Genesis 24.34–38, 42–49, 58–67 Romans 7.15–25a Matthew 11.16–19, 25–30 An American sent me a strange book the other day. Jesus, he argued, was an alcoholic. Roused from his drunkenness by the preaching of John the Baptist, …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Palm Sunday Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Palm Sunday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Palm Sunday - Year A (Liturgy of the Passion) Isaiah 50.4–9a Philippians 2.5–11 Matthew 26.14—27.66 C. S. Lewis, writing as a literary critic, proposed a test for good writing: how often does it deserve to be read? Cheap magazine stories come at the bottom (once you know what hap…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 6 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 6 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 6 Genesis 18.1–15 Romans 5.1–8 Matthew 9.35—10.8 [9–23] Take the gospel reading (the longer version) and lay it, like a template, over the life of the average parish. What do you find? I know, I know. We don’t live in the fir…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Lent- Year A 1 Samuel 16.1–13 Ephesians 5.8–14 John 9.1–41 Don’t miss the sinister moment towards the end of John’s great story. We were told from the beginning that the blind man’s condition from birth had nothing to do with previous sins, whether his own or…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 20 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 20 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 20 Jeremiah 11.18-20 James 3.13-4.3, 7-8a Mark 9.30-37 What an emotional roller-coaster ride the disciples are on by this stage of Jesus’s ministry. Not that life with Jesus had ever been boring, exactly, but at least they had known what they were doing. Or they had though…
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 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,…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Lent - Year A Exodus 17.1–7 Romans 5.1–11 John 4.5–42 John’s great sprawling story (what an excellent move to have some of Jesus’ Johannine encounters in full during Lent) offers food for thought at every level. The antipathy between Jews and Samaritans wa…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Lent - Year A Ezekiel 37.1–14 Romans 8.6–11 John 11.1–45 ‘Resurrection’ began as a metaphor for the return from exile. Ezekiel’s surreal vision was an image of Israel, ‘dead’ in Babylon, being restored to her own land. It goes with the promises of the previou…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Lent - Year A Genesis 2.15–17; 3.1–7 Romans 5.12–19 Matthew 4.1–11 Students set to translate Romans 5 often despair: some of its ‘sentences’ have neither subjects nor verbs nor objects, but are just collocations of indirect phrases. Paul at his most obliqu…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Lent - Year A Genesis 12.1–4a Romans 4.1–5, 13–17 John 3.1–17 ‘Leave country, kin and home, and go.’ And Abram went. The call was like that other word, to leave and cleave, spoken before the Fall: a marriage vow, a challenge and a pledge of loyalty. Like,…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 15 Year A