Tag: Faith Life
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Seventh Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Epistle Passage – The adamance of the “testimony” & the apostles
“If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in…
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Sixth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Epistle Passage – Faith & Belief applied in a “new” way
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.” (I John 5:1) This opening verse has an aspect of “who is who” to it that defines the rest of the passage. I will say, to the translators and the paraphrasers of this…
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Fifth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Substitute Acts Passage – A miracle of juxtapositions
“Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge…
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Fourth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Psalm Passage – Exercising faith & belief: Preacher & Seeker look at Psalm 32 again
Preacher: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I am reminded, and it is no coincidence knowing the RCL, of the gospel passage for this week – that Jesus said He was a good shepherd, the Good Shepherd, laying down His life. And was able through the Divine to pick His life back…
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Fourth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Gospel Passage – Exercising love & compassion
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) From what I have learned and understood of Jewish society at that time, shepherds were not held in high esteem. The stayed long days and weeks with the sheep, and did not have opportunities to bath. Probably less…
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Fourth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Epistles Passage – “Building up” our love & compassion
“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” (I John 3:16 – 17) There is a…
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Fourth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Substituted Acts Passage – “Building up” our faith
“The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:5 – 7)…
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Third Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Gospel Passage – The expectations & understanding of what it means to be in relationship with the Divine
“While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (Luke 24:36b) This passage comes right after one of my favorite post-Easter stories about the two travelers on the road to Emmaus, where Jesus met them on the road and traveled with them explaining the passages…
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Third Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Epistle Passage – The expectation of belonging to & being in relationship with the Divine
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” (I John 3:1) On one level I agree with this. If our upbringing is not known, it is…
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Second Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023: Epilogue – Substituted Acts Passage
I had determined, or tried to determine, that I would be “fallow” during Holy Week. And let the week have its due, and not jump ahead to the follow week – you see, beloved reader, I write one week in advance. So I wrote the reflections of Holy Week during the week of March 17th.…
A Simple Desire 