In the Lectionary

Jesus' ministry is not what John the Baptist expected it to be.

The Bible uses the word fear both for fright and awe. This week's texts reveal the difference.

While we're preparing for Jesus' birth, these texts talk about getting ready for the Second Coming.

Luke's text for Reign of Christ Sunday is a searing critique of leaders who are powerful but not vulnerable.

I'd left the practice of testimony in my childhood church. Then I learned why Luke suggests it when your world is falling apart.

A retired colonel taught me about the courage it takes to love our enemies.

Zacchaeus's daily life as a tax collector was reduced to the symptoms of his society's sickness.

Nations as well as individuals need to look in the moral mirror in order to stop deceiving ourselves.

Maybe the parable of the persistent widow isn't about God. Maybe it's about us.

When I read this week's Gospel, I remember two lepers I saw at a train station in India—how alone they were.

I'm more than a bit smitten with the image of rekindling the gift of God within us.

Luke's story of the rich man and Lazarus is full of vivid details. Which makes you cringe the most?

What is Jesus thinking when he tells the parable of the dishonest steward?

James calls Abraham a “friend of God.” In this week’s reading from Exodus, Moses presumes upon a similar divine friendship to offer God advice.

In this week’s Gospel text, the piercing hyperbole about family and discipleship normally receives top billing homiletically. However, I am newly struck by Jesus’ words regarding building a tower.

Jesus offers his unsolicited advice fully aware of the jousting for prominence that occurs in our social spaces. He sees our mad dash to the front row so that we can be seen by the chief executive officer, the potential major donor, or the bishop.

The unnamed woman’s healing in this week’s Gospel reading is a story of expansion, revelation, vision widened by grace. There’s more to the story, however.

Fire is a dangerous image for Jesus to use, even if he doesn’t mean it literally. What kind of God would bring fire to the earth?

Hope is the content of faith. Hope is the adopted son, the grafted inheritor. If there are to be, as with Abraham’s descendants, innumerable stars and grains of sands, it will be through this boy.

Paul says the hidden life is a moral one, putting off vices like a set of dirty old clothes.