In the Lectionary

What is the point of prayer? The question is writ large in the texts from both the Hebrew scripture and the Gospel for this Sunday. The terrain is fraught with places to trip and fall.

God’s experience of hospitality—in the mysterious travelers and in the person of Jesus—inspires us to think beyond an Abraham-vs.-Sarah or Martha-vs.-Mary divide.

How do we respond to the issues that trouble people deeply? Jesus and the lawyer have a proper debate, but the lawyer continues to wrestle and cannot let go.

Jesus sends his disciples out “like lambs in the midst of wolves.” We live in a time when intimacy is erased, privacy laughable, rhetoric rude and rusty. The notion of going out as lambs to wolves is apt, even if the wolves and lambs may be interchangeable.

Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem marks a shift: the text mentions it three times. There is a boldness and immovable attention to the assignment.

Many people are bound. Some don’t even know it. The difference between being free and being bound is at the center of our Gospel text this week.

When I read this week’s passage from Luke, I take an aerial view. My perspective shifts from the disciples to Jesus, then to Simon the Pharisee, then to the bystanders, and finally to the woman who washes Jesus’ feet.

In Luke’s Gospel, many of Jesus’ encounters with people are described in terms of whether or not they have faith. Yet this week’s story of the widow of Nain stands in contrast: the person in need never asks for help.

In Galatians, Paul is confrontational. While we should be more cautious about calling other people "foolish," we can learn from him that tolerance shouldn't depend on denying one's faith, and being grounded in one's faith shouldn't lead to intolerance or coercion.

When we are overwhelmed by our daily struggles, when we get weary because of the dehumanization that results from hatred and greed, Proverbs 8 and Psalm 8 remind us how God conceives of us as human beings crowned with glory and honor.

In Acts comes Luke’s imaginative way to build upon ancient stories. The tongues of fire are no longer seen from afar on top of God’s mountain. And the multiplicity of languages becomes God’s vehicle for bringing salvation to the entire world.

The reading from Revelation 22 concludes the book’s resurrection songs: the baptized enjoy the fruits of the tree of life.  But the tree is not merely one of the countless archetypal trees that religions and cultures everywhere have imagined.

On Ascension Day, with the readings from Luke and Acts in danger of being embalmed by archaism, the reading from Ephesians is a gift.

It’s common to confuse ministry leaders with Jesus. We can see ourselves in Judas’s question to Jesus, “How is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Why do we have to carry the message?

Jesus uses both words and deeds to prepare his followers for his absence. Are the disciples watching for what it means to really, really love? Are we?

A shepherd’s staff has a crook for drawing the sheep away from danger, and a blunt end for prodding them toward places they would rather not go. This week’s texts embrace the tension between the two in the shepherd’s role.

As we encounter the post-resurrection Jesus in this week’s Gospel, brokenness and disappointment permeate—brokenness as thick as the morning mist off the Sea of Galilee, disappointment as pungent as the smell of fish.

To ask a question is to risk an answer. Sometimes we don’t like the answer we receive. In Thomas’s case, though, the real risk is in success.

Luke grounds the resurrection narrative in tangible details: the rock-hewn tomb, the linen cloth, the heavy stone, the fragrant spices. The reader can imagine the place and time. Then things fall off the map.

There are many reasons to deny Jesus, and we all have one.