In the Lectionary

“Many were coming and going, and they had no leisure, even to eat.” I think of the many lunches spent at my computer with a sandwich.

I like Mark’s frequent mention of how people felt. In this week’s text, Herod is greatly perplexed about John the Baptist.

As Jesus prepares to send the Twelve, his experience of failure seems to color his instructions.

Two people in great distress do what a third, the Gerasene demoniac, has already done: they interrupt and rearrange Jesus’ day.

Like the stories that come before it, the storm at sea is a parable of reversal.

I have come to realize how mysterious a thing a seed is.

I wonder if Nicodemus knows what he’s getting into. What draws him to Jesus? What motivates any of us to come to Jesus?

It is clear in Acts 2 that a party is taking place—that dreams and visions are not meant to be dreamt alone.

Once again we have journeyed through Jesus’ death and resurrection—only to be left watching Jesus leave.

An ancient definition of God says that God is an intelligible circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

The more I read the beginning of John 15, the more I come to believe that it is about the Lord’s Supper.

When I pray the words of Psalm 23, the “you” I address them to is God. But I hope others will overhear.

Touch me and see, said the prisoners. Shake my hand and discover that I am human like you.

Thomas knows Jesus as incarnate. He cannot easily make the leap to Jesus’ new condition. It’s easier for us, because we consider the story in a different order.

If it hadn't been for the snakes, I might have let the reader continue. Instead I went to the lectern and quietly said, "we are stopping at verse 8 today."

Aristotle writes that we would never go to the theater to see terrible things happen to a good man through no fault of his. Yet here we gather, aching for a good man’s sorrows and turning to him to make sense of our own.

John 13 begins with imminent betrayal, suffering, and death. Understandably, we envision the scene with somber images. But I wonder if we overlook Jesus’ joy.

Palm Sunday is a story of disappointed expectations, of what happens when someone you admire refuses to be who you think they should be.

The Jesus that John shows us in this week’s Gospel text is not a religious robot, unemotionally prepared to end it all for the cause. He sees the risks, feels them.