Tag: Discipleship
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 16 [21]): The Epistle Passage – Our function and call within the Body of the Lord God
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1) Often times there is the presumption that what we do with or to our bodies is separate and distinct from what we…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 14 [19]): The Gospel Passage – Trusting in the Lord God, no matter the depths and circumstances
“Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.” (Matthew 14:22) To paraphrase, and set the scene, Jesus and the disciples had just gotten done “cleaning up the crumbs” and gathering up the leftovers after the feeding of the multitudes (five thousand…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 13 [18]): The Psalm Passage – Petitioning the Lord God on the basis of what will be in the future
“Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.” (Psalm 17:1) While this psalm is being used in conjunction with the story of Jacob awaiting the morning when he will see his brother Esau for the first time in over fourteen years, I am…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 13 [18]): The Epistles Passage – Mapping some slippery slopes with Paul
“I am speaking the truth in Christ–I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit– “ (Romans 9:1) Call me a skeptic of long running, but many times when someone tells me they are speaking the truth, I prick me ears up and discern whether they are really lying. Maybe it is…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 12 [17]): The Psalm Passage – Wrestling with the Psalms, of all things!
Do you remember, beloved reader, from back on Tuesday when we talked about how Jacob had treated his brother Esau, and deceived his father? And he, Jacob, was deceived by his uncle, his mother’s brother? And the week before, we talked about Jacob and his dream of the ladder up to heaven, and God giving…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 12 [17]): The Gospel Passage – The Kingdom of Heaven is . . . .
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 12 [17]): The Epistles Passage – It can be a hard life, beloved reader
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26) Paul has just got done exhorting us to hope, just as I have commended to hope even though you cannot see what you…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 12 [17]): The Old Testament Passage – Lessons to be learned and legacies to be established
We pick up the story of Jacob when he had reached the ancestral home of his grandfather and his mother. His uncle Laban, now married himself and and with daughters, has agreed to employ Jacob to tend his flocks. But wants Jacob to earn more than just his room and board. Jacob has an idea…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 11 [16]): The Psalm Passage – Far away, and close to home . . . the Lord is there
“O LORD, you have searched me and known me.” (Psalm 139:1) As you may have figure out, beloved reader, this Psalm passage is meant to match up with the other scripture readings this week, and by consequence, match the Old Testament passage concerning Jacob. But I think every person in the Old Testament who had…
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Season after Pentecost (Proper 10 [15]) : The Gospel Passage – Growing in and with the Lord God Jesus Christ
“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as…
A Simple Desire 