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Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 36–41 1 Peter 1.17–23 Luke 24.13–35 Today’s readings bubble over with the excitement of the new moment that has dawned in Israel’s story, in the world’s story, with the resurrection. It isn’t merely that God is offering a new kind o…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Third Sunday of Advent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Third Sunday of Advent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Third Sunday of Advent - Year A Isaiah 35: 1-10 James 5: 7-10 Matthew 11: 2-11 One of the recently edited Dead Sea Scrolls (no. 521 of the Cave 4 collection, if anyone out there wants the reference) contains a portrait of the coming Messiah that, like Matthew 11, looks back to Is…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: SATURDAY Matthew 18; focused on 18.21–35 There are at least three levels at which we should read this sharp and startling story. And at least three levels at which we should apply it to our lives, not least our lives in church. Start, though, with Peter’s question. It see…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: FRIDAY Matthew 17; focused on 17.14 –20 Once more we come close to Jesus in the crowd; and this time let’s bring with us someone we know, perhaps someone very close to us, who is in serious need of Jesus’ help. Take a moment and think who you want to bring. Let’s recall w…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Third Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Third Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: TUESDAY Matthew 15.1–20; focused on 15.1– 9 Germs and Jesus!’ shouted the seven-year-old son of a friend of mine. ‘Germs and Jesus! You keep telling me they’re important and I can’t see either of them!’ A fascinating response to a pressing parental problem. We tell our…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: Third Week in lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: Third Week in lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: WEDNESDAY Matthew 15.21–38; focused on 15.21–28 Let’s listen in on this conversation. Stand in the crowd and see what you think. We’re up north now, away from Galilee. Jesus has already spoken of this region (‘the district of Tyre and Sidon’) in such a way as to make it…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Fifth Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Fifth Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 5: TUESDAY Matthew 24; focused on 24.45 –51 I vividly remember my first experience of working on a building site. I was a student, earning some money during the vacation. The work was physically hard – or rather, it would have been if we had kept it up all day. There was a…
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 Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Today’s passages might, on a superficial reading, simply be making the fairly standard point that Christ’s kingship and authority are a challenge to most human understandings of power. That’s a good and important po…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 7 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 7 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 7 Isaiah 65.1–9 Galatians 3.23–9 Luke 8.26–39 The people in today’s reading from Isaiah have apparently got bored with the true God. The chapter opens with God waiting patiently, almost passively, for his people to come looking for him. When they don’t, God begins to call …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 9 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 9 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 9 Isaiah 66.10–14 Galatians 6.1–16 Luke 10.1–11, 16–20 Luke 8—10 sets out a very interesting mission strategy. In chapter 8, Jesus himself goes through towns and villages, curing people, and gathering huge crowds to hear his stories and see his miracles. Then in chapter 9,…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 23 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 23 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 23 2 Kings 5.1–3, 7–15c 2 Timothy 2.8–15 Luke 17.11–19 The story of Naaman has got everything. To begin with, the hero is a thoroughly likeable character. (Well, I suppose you could argue that Elisha is the real hero of the story, and no one could call him exactly likeable…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 22 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 22 Habakkuk 1.1–4; 2.1–4 2 Timothy 1.1–14 Luke 17.5–10 This central section of Luke’s Gospel is full of very uncomfortable reading. It starts at 9.51, when Jesus ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’, and the ministry enters a new phase. Now everything he says and does is bein…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 21 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 21 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 21 Amos 6.1a, 4–7 1 Timothy 6.6–19 Luke 16.19–31 The people who know about these things generally seem to agree that the Pastoral Letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) were not written by the apostle Paul, at least as they now stand. They have all kinds of good reasons for s…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 3 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 3 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 3 Genesis 45.3–11, 15 1 Corinthians 15.35–8 Luke 6.27–38 These verses in Luke mark a shift in tone from the preceding verses. The ‘blessings and woes’ section that comes immediately before this passage is about what is ‘now’, it is about results. But now Jesus moves from t…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Lent Joshua 5.9–12 2 Corinthians 5.16–21 Luke 15.1–3, 11b–32 Luke, the expert writer, puts the prodigal son as the third of a set of stories about losing and finding. All of the stories emphasize God’s joy at finding what had been lost, but the story of the p…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Ezekiel 43.27—44.4 1 Corinthians 13.1–13 Luke 2.22–40 Today’s reading from Ezekiel is chosen, presumably, because it connects well to the account in Luke of Jesus’ presentation in the temple. Both talk about the proper fulfilment of the law, and the …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Lent Year C