Category Archives: Sermon and Lesson Themes
Bruce Epperly Comments on Epiphany 3B
Bruce Epperly comments on the lectionary passages for next Sunday (Epiphany 3B), which are extraordinarily well suited for a process theologian. Well worth checking out!
Bruce Epperly Comments for the First Sunday of Advent (Cycle B)
Bruce Epperly has an excellent set of comments on the texts for Advent 1B at Process and Faith. In particular take a look at the discussion of our perception that God has abandoned us in the comments on Isaiah 64. But are we abandoned, and what would it mean? Perhaps, as later Jewish mysticism suggests, [...]
Lent 1A: Psalm 32 and Repentance
This is just a very short note with a link. I’d like to tie the repentance described in Psalm 32 to Leviticus 6 (5 in Hebrew). I wrote about that previously on my Participatory Bible Study Blog. This passage describes the priestly doctrine of repentance.
Lent 1A – Theme
Well, I’m back again on one of my irregular forays into lectionary blogging. I hope visitors in the meantime have found value in the links to other people’s lectionary blogging found in my sidebar. It’s not hard to find a theme in this week’s lectionary texts, nor to imagine why those are the texts for [...]
Ephesians 3:1-12 – To the Rulers and the Authorities
This is from the Epiphany 1A lectionary. This passage interested me because of the reference to revealing God’s wisdom to the authorities in the heavenly realm through the church (Eph. 3:10). The reason for this interest is the “great controversy” theme that I grew up with as a Seventh-day Adventist. The foundation for this is [...]
Christmas 2A – Celebrating Redemption
That’s a pretty obvious theme, but it would seem even more odd to skip it! The second Sunday in Christmas is a good day to commemorate these events. There are a few different items that strike me here. The connection of the return from exile with the redemptive mission of Jesus. This shouldn’t be surprising, [...]
Keeping Up with the Church Year
One of the great benefits of using the lectionary, especially for major days during the church year, is that it helps us keep these various days in context. It’s easy for Christmas to be simply the holiday of giving, the one that allows us to sing all that good music and have some parties. Keeping [...]
Profitable Scriptures
It’s been about six weeks since my last post, and unfortunately that’s actually a fairly short gap for the way I’ve kept this blog up. But the two Old Testament passages this week (Jeremiah 31:27-34 and Psalm 19 or Psalm 119:94-107) as well as the epistle caught my attention. In the modern church we read [...]
Appealing to Grace
While there is much violence in the Old Testament (and a certain amount in the New), the basic ideas of grace are still expressed regularly. Nowhere is this clearer, in my opinion, than in the appeal to salvation history in passages of judgment and of exhortation. The Old Testament passage and the Psalm for Proper [...]
Seeing Things Differently
Reversal is a common theme in the teachings of Jesus. The poor are blessed? The persecuted are blessed? How silly is that? And today we have another reversal in our gospel passage (Mark 12:38-44). The widow who puts in two little coins that might, optimistically, add up to a penny, is the one who put [...]
