Browsing RCL Reflections
Walk Wet and Share the Good News
Baptism of our Lord, Year A, January 8, 2017
This week’s gospel is a great springboard to remember and give thanks for your baptism, but don’t stop there! We have good news to share as we walk wet in this world. (Photo: Waiting for the Word, Creative Commons License)
Unlikely Dance Partners: Lament and Hope
First Sunday of Christmas Year A, January 1, 2017
How quickly we move from the celebration and joy of Christmas day to the reality of the world’s brokenness. Yes, it’s a delicate dance between lament and hope, but Christmas isn’t nearly over yet, and we trust that the arc of justice does bend and find fulfillment in Christ. (Photo: semelina, Creative Commons)
Here Comes Christmas!
Christmas Eve/Day, Year A
Yes, Christmas comes—ready or not. For an hour or two we share God’s inbreaking into our human condition, hopefully in ways that can be heard but also seen, felt, tasted, and born afresh in each beating heart. Blessings on your preaching and teaching! (Photo: Waiting for the Word)
The Rest of your Story
Lectionary Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A, December 18, 2016
There’s a little bit of Joseph in all of us. We are ordinary saints and sinners, trying to do the best we can with what we have. And then God shows up, and our stories are rewritten. (Photo: gacabo, Creative Commons)
On God’s Hopeful Highway
Third Sunday of Advent, Year A, December 11, 2016
What sort of highway do you want to travel each and every day? Do you want to experience life or hurtle through it? Do you desire to chart your course on God’s hopeful highway, among God’s people? (Photo:
An Advent Welcome
Second Sunday of Advent, Year A, December 4, 2016
Life is too short and the gospel too important to let an annual season like Advent get the short shrift or be transformed into a mere prelude to presents. Fling wide the doors of your heart, home, and church to welcome the stranger–and Jesus. (Photo: Simran, Creative Commons)
Ready or Not: Here Comes Jesus
Revised Common Lectionary Reflection for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A, November 27, 2016
Advent is a time for God’s faithful and generous people to be “ready†and flexible with time, talent, and treasure, even as we wait and watch for God’s incarnation among us. (Photo: Daniel X. O’Neil,
Be Still, Steward!
The Reign of Christ, Year C, November 20, 2016
It is an act of stewardship to stop our excessive “doing†and spend time “being†with God. It is not easy to slow down, and it is certainly countercultural in our over-scheduled, multi-tasking culture, but making dedicated time to focus on God is essential to our overall well-being. (Photo: Leland Francisco, Creative Commons
‘Edgy’ Stewardship for Troubling Times
Lectionary Reflection for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, November 11, 2016
In this week’s gospel lesson, Jesus instructs us to see our suffering and the changes that ravage our security and life as opportunities to witness and testify to the love and grace of our Lord. We are called to steward an “edgy” faith. (Photo: Georgie Pauwels, Creative Commons)
Instructions for Would-Be Saints
All Saints Sunday, Year C, November 6, 2016
This All Saints Sunday take this challenging lesson from Jesus with its absolutely daunting set of instructions, its beautiful blessings, and its condemning woes, and remind the faithful that they are indeed in the company of all the saints and are the stronger for it. (Photo: fady habib, Creative Commons)
