Year C – Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - (Proper 11)
It is essentially impossible to hear Colossians 1:15-20 read without taking note of the way the language of the text describes Jesus. Theologians would describe what we find here as an extremely high Christology! Jesus is described as the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead, the head of the church, intended to […]
Read MoreYear C – Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - (Proper 10)
“Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God” Did you hear the stunning, breath-taking, exceedingly provocative claim in the opening verses of Paul’s letter to the Colossians? The Apostle tells […]
Read MoreYear C – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - (Proper 9)
This compelling account of the healing of Naaman is first of all a vivid illustration of the limits of extraordinary power. Everywhere you look in the text there is recurring evidence of what really powerful people cannot do. First there is the case of Naaman himself. When he appears in this text, he does so […]
Read MoreYear C – Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - (Proper 8)
How much is too much? At the Baptist boys’ camp where I worked for nine years, the Craft Hut was just up the path from Unit #2 Bathhouse. The summer of 1983 when I ran the place I called it “Dino’s Depot,” and it was a place of learning and creative exploration, a place where […]
Read MoreYear C – Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 7
In the days following the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, reporters and native New Yorkers spoke of the change that had fallen over the city: In the place of rush-hour traffic there were empty streets. In the place of strangers, rushing by, hardly noticing one another, there were smiles, and strangers who […]
Read MoreYear C: Proper 6 (11) - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and […]
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