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Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday Before Lent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Isaiah 1.10–18 2 Thessalonians 1.1–12 Luke 19.1–10 The temptation with today’s three readings is to go straight for the story of Zacchaeus. It’s warm, vivid and has a happy ending. But the other two readings remind us that Zacchaeus’ choice is not …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The First Sunday of Christmas 1 Samuel 2.18–20, 26 Colossians 3.12–17 Luke 2.41–52 To get the full picture of what is going on in the reading from 1 Samuel, we really need the verses that the lectionary chooses to leave out. The story is actually about different kinds of sonship.…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 33.14–16 1 Thessalonians 3.9–13 Luke 21.25–36 Intelligent waiting seems to be the theme of these three readings – not a bad theme for the start of Advent, but definitely to be distinguished from Aunt Juley in Forster’s Howard’s End, who goes th…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Genesis 22.1–18 Acts 11.1–18 John 13.31–5 The verses from St John’s Gospel come at the turning point of the Last Supper. Judas has just left the room, and there is now no going back. A sense of urgency seems to overtake Jesus after this. The supper is…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Christmas Jeremiah 31.7–14 Ephesians 1.3–14 John 1.10–18 What is grace? Both John and Ephesians have the word more than once. It’s a word that we use quite frequently in Christian circles. Most meetings I go to, you know when they’ve ended because someone say…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday Before Advent Job 19.23–7a 2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17 Luke 20.27–38 The book of Job has always inspired strong feelings – hardly surprising, as its themes are suffering and justice. At the heart of the many paradoxes that belief in the God of the Bible presents…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 14 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 14 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 14 Genesis 15.1–6 Hebrews 11.1–3, 8–16 Luke 12.32–40 Faith is sometimes presented as necessarily divorced from evidence. If you can prove something, then you don’t need to have faith to believe it. But that doesn’t seem to be quite what our readings today are saying. They …
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You In a television interview, the great tennis player Serena Williams was talking about an outburst she’d had at a lineswoman who claimed Serena had foot-faulted; Serena had been convinced she was wrong…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Easter Sunday Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Easter Sunday Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Easter Sunday Isaiah 65.17–25 Acts 10.34–43 Luke 24.1–12 Creation and resurrection are mirror images of each other, and they are held together by the nature and purpose of God. At its simplest, God is Life-giver. That has endless implications and ramifications, all of them glorio…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Last Sunday After Trinity Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Last Sunday After Trinity Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Last Sunday After Trinity Jeremiah 14.7–10, 19–22 2 Timothy 4.6–8, 16–18 Luke 18.9–14 A disciple’s tale: He told another of his stories today. I love his stories – they were one of the things that made me decide to follow him, really. I just couldn’t bear to miss any of them.…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 17 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 17 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 17 Ecclesiasticus 10.12–18 Hebrews 13.1–8, 15, 16 Luke 14.1, 7–14 In this central section of Luke’s Gospel it feels as though Jesus is in a kind of first-century Big Brother. Everything he does and says is being critically watched, sifted, grafted into other people’s fan…
The Lion's World - 4 - No story but your own The Lion's World
The Lion's World - 4 - No story but your own The Lion's World
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
No story but your own Aslan loves his world and yet he cannot spare it – in the sense that he cannot make the experience of meeting him easy for persons who habitually settle for much less than the truth in their account of themselves and their world. And one of the simplest and …
The Lion's World - Conclusion
The Lion's World - Conclusion
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Conclusion Narnia brings into clear focus a wide variety of central Christian themes; but out of this variety there are at least three that seem to emerge particularly strongly from the discussion in these pages. If, as I suggested at the beginning, Lewis’s aim is to help us sens…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Advent 2 Samuel 7.1–11, 16 Romans 16.25–27 Luke 1.26–38 How can we honour God? How can we show our gratitude for what he has done and promise our obedience for the future? Perhaps our offerings sometimes resemble the mauled mouse that the cat brings in and la…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday Before Lent Proverbs 8.1, 22–31 Colossians 1.15–20 John 1.1–14 The Sunday lectionary readings do, on the whole, allow us to focus on the central Christian belief that God does all things out of love towards his creation. Even when the readings focus on the suffe…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The First Sunday of Advent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The First Sunday of Advent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The First Sunday of Advent Isaiah 64.1–9 1 Corinthians 1.3–9 Mark 13.24–37 A monk comes to his abbot, seeking enlightenment. He questions the abbot eagerly and impatiently, firing questions at him. But the abbot says, ‘Just look.’ The monk is very disappointed, ‘I’m always lookin…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Christmas Jeremiah 31.7–14 Ephesians 1.3–14 John 1.1–18 At the heart of the Christian proclamation of God is the belief that before time, before creation, before the existence of anything but God, God is already love. God’s very nature is the love that flows …
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Christmas Day Year B