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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 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…
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
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 16 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 16 John 6: 56-69 Gaze on Simon Peter. He is standing near to Jesus, and is spokesman yet again for the disciples. He is the first to speak, yet again perhaps too readily. Hear his exclamation: ‘To whom shall we go?’ Listen to his tone of voice. Is he dogmatic or pleading, …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 15 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 15 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 15 John 6: 51-58 Gaze on a typical communion service. In some churches people sit patiently in their pew before being stewarded to the rail. In others, people get up and go when it suits them. There is the circle of people around the altar – the elderly and arthritic stand…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 14 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 14 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 14 John 6: 35, 41-51 Gaze on Jesus trying to reason with the crowd. See how very human this story is, how the crowd’s mood swings from worship and surprise to doubt and grumbling so quickly. Listen to the ripples of argument and the shocked whispers, for this man’s claims …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 13 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 13 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 13 John 6: 24-35 Gaze on Jesus by the campfire burning on the beach; or in the upper room; or on the shore with the five thousand. What is that in his hands? Almost always, it is bread. Bread broken and the crumbs at his feet which the birds will swoop for as he moves away…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 6 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 6 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 6 Mark 4: 26-34 Gaze on a vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden, or better still a full-sized allotment, with the gardener’s rickety shed in one corner, a watering can outside the door. Gaze on the rows of neat plants: pale lime-green lettuce leaves, baby leeks like …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 21 Year B