We come to the end of our Lectionary Year. Every symphony has its crescendo and finale and the Sunday of Christ the King is that for the lectionary year. All our readings look toward the end of things brought to completion by the King of Kings. David’s final words. Daniel’s final vision. Revelation’s NT version … Continue reading Episode 43, Twenty-Seventh Sunday After Pentecost, November 25th, 2018
We are approaching the end of the lectionary year B, and as noted, we have this Sunday a reading from the apocalyptic portion of Mark, which in its entirety runs for some 37 verses. Our selection is but the brief, opening portion of that. Also as noted, the focus on the end times, at the … Continue reading Episode 42, Twenty-Sixth Sunday After Pentecost, November 18th, 2018
In our lessons for this Sunday, the conclusion from the book of Ruth wraps up Track One’s brief summary of that marvelous brief work, and joins to it an equally uplifting psalm 127. In Track Two the reading from 1 Kings 17, Elijah and the widow from Zarephath, has been chosen to come alongside Jesus’ … Continue reading Episode 41, Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, November 11th, 2018
I want to stop and take stock of where we are in the lectionary year. November provides the final four segments of Year B, years that typically end with the dramatic Second Coming readings from each of the three synoptic Gospels, this year represented by Mark 13. The lectionary obviously has us heading toward Jerusalem … Continue reading Episode 40, Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, November 4th, 2018
We have reached a major turning point in Mark’s Gospel. Indeed the major turning point. Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem to face the fate he has been promising will be his, and whose details have been given most recently down to specifics. The disciples persist in various forms of blindness and half-blindness, but doggedly … Continue reading Episode 39, Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost, October 28th, 2018
Six Sundays ago, our reading was the first passion prediction, and this Sunday’s reading follows the third and final one of the set. We also noted that this particular section of Mark is framed by two healing stories involving blindness, in 8:22-26 and following our reading for this Sunday, in 10:46-52, the healing of blind … Continue reading Episode 38, Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost, October 21st, 2018
We continue our Track One readings from the Book of Job; the Epistle reading from Hebrews; Track Two’s Amos and Mark pairing, and accompanying psalms. Job endures three rounds of dialogues with his friends, who after sitting seven days in silence at his dilemma, open their mouths. And open them they do. I take the … Continue reading Episode 37, Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost, October 14th, 2018
There is a good deal of symphonic overlay in our lessons for this Sunday. This is due to the recycling of texts across our readings, as the Bible speaks from depth to depth, as it so often does! That is its genius. A book unlike any other book. Jesus cites verses that appear in Genesis … Continue reading Episode 36, Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost, October 7th, 2018
After hearing last week of the woman of valor, from the last chapter of Proverbs, I spoke of the clear evocation of Ruth, who is called by the same term by Boaz in the book which follows Proverbs in Hebrew lists. Valiant she is. And Track One will turn to her in weeks to come. … Continue reading Episode 35, Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 30th, 2018
We skip over the Transfiguration (it is read on the last Sunday before the Lenten season starts) and the healing of the epileptic to arrive at the second passion prediction. In all three of these scenes we have misunderstandings by the disciples, to various degrees, from rebuke to arguments concerning rank, each followed by Jesus’ … Continue reading Episode 34, Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 23rd, 2018