Year A: Transfiguration (Last Sunday Before Lent)
Our Christian New Testament has four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — each with its own distinctive approach in telling of the life and ministry of Jesus, climaxing with the crucifixion and resurrection. Luke’s Gospel begins by noting “many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been […]
Read MoreYear A - Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany
The verses of the old gospel song, “Life is Like a Mountain Railroad,” compare human existence with a lifelong train trip. But then, the chorus seems to switch to riding on a boat in anticipation of reaching heaven’s blissful shore and singing with the angels. This is an example of combining two comparisons that don’t […]
Read MoreYear A - Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
In the Blue Laws era of the 1960s, state laws in South Carolina tried to define certain businesses that should and should not be open on Sundays, but state officials gave some leeway for local governing bodies to enact their own laws. For example, the city of Anderson and Anderson County had some different laws. […]
Read MoreYear A - Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Many people approach today, February 2, with a superstitious outlook, anticipating certain things happening if certain other things happen. On Groundhog Day, tradition has it, if the namesake rodent comes out of his hole and sees his shadow, you can expect forty more days of wintery weather. February 2 marks the approximate midpoint between the […]
Read MoreYear A – Reign of Christ – Twenty Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
INTRODUCTION With celebrities in movies and on television, you can go to the Internet and find pictures of them in various roles and at different stages of their lives. For example, the British actor Roddy McDowall was well-known in the 1940s as a child star in My Friend Flicka and Lassie Come Home. He survived […]
Read MoreYear A – Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
INTRODUCTION John Milton was one of the best-known poets in England in the seventeenth century. He also was a strong advocate of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. He was a devout Protestant Christian. Milton began losing his sight when he was in his early forties, and he was totally blind by […]
Read MoreYear A – Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Louisa is a great grandmother who is Rapturous — with a Capital “R.” She eagerly awaits the end of her earthly life, confident this will also be the end of life as we know it for all Christians before the Great Tribulation begins. She writes “Rapturously” about swooshing through the air with the redeemed of […]
Read MoreYear A – Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
INTRODUCTION A barefoot, freckle-faced, blue-eyed boy named Dooley Barlowe was wearing dirty overalls when he showed up Tim Kavanagh’s door. Dooley was with his grandpa who the janitor at the church where Tim was better known as Father Tim, the Episcopal priest. Dooley was an eleven-year-old semi-orphan who used mild “cussin’” and backwoods English. But, […]
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