Month: December 2020
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Studying Luke 4 14-22
We are studying Luke 4:14-22, Jesus’s Torah commentary in the synagogue in Nazareth, for Sunday, January 3. Our designated verses stop short of Luke’s record of the controversy Jesus’s appearance in Nazareth generates; if we want to look at that, too, we’ll need to read through the end of the chapter. [Some questions on the […]
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Preaching for People You Can’t See – or, a Message in a Bottle
Our wonderful pastor was taking a well-deserved vacation on Sunday, and the Worship Committee had not heard back from the other person they asked about preaching for the First Sunday after Christmas, and they knew I needed a link to a sermon I could share with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry anyway, which I […]
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More Books for Christmas!
Basically, I got a big bag of books for Christmas. *Grins broadly* These are the ones I’m adding to the Read Me Project list: Fretheim, Terence E. and Froehlich, Karlfried. The Bible as the Word of God in a Postmodern Age. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998. Garrett, Duane A. The Problem of the Old Testament: […]
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First Sunday after Christmas (B)
Call to Worship (based on Luke 2) The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all! The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light! Emmanuel is born, God with us, the Word made flesh! We echo the songs of angels and the rejoicing of shepherds: Glory to God in the highest! […]
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Shabbat shalom
It is significant that [the Maggid of Mezritch’s] favorite simile is that of the father adjusting himself to his little son who is eager to learn. He regards the world as God’s self-adjustment to his little son: Man, whom he rears with tender care to enable him to grow up to his Father. Martin Buber, […]
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Reflecting on Matthew 3 1-12
We are studying Matthew 3:1-12 for Sunday, December 27 – studying, that is, when we are not preoccupied with whatever Christmas plans we are carrying out this week. [Some notes on the text are here.] Here are a few questions that might help us think about the text: John the Baptist seems to have been […]
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Studying Matthew 3 1-12
We are studying Matthew 3:1-12 for Sunday, December 27 – studying, that is, when we are not preoccupied with whatever Christmas plans we are carrying out this week. [Some questions on the text are here.] Here are a few belated notes on our text: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: Our text this week is the next episode […]
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Merry Christmas!
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and […]
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The Darkest Evening of the Year
Sunset tonight in our neighborhood is 5:26 p.m. – Eastern Standard Time. We will have had 9 hours, 30 minutes, and 7 seconds of [partly nominal] daylight. Tomorrow we will have three or four seconds more of it. And a few more seconds the day after that. I am someone who once received one of […]
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Ear Worms
People need music. It’s built in to us. We can stop gathering for choir practice, we can make a rule that we will only sing in the sanctuary softly behind masks so that we don’t spew potentially fatal aerosols all over the air commons, we can make a thing out of those craftily edited Zoom […]
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Fourth Sunday in Advent (B)
A Call to Worship (based on Luke 1:46-55 and Psalm 89:1) The Mighty One has done great things God’s name is holy God’s mercy is for those who fear him God is bringing down and powerful and lifting up the lowly Let us, too, sing of the steadfast love of the Holy One Let us, […]
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Shabbat shalom
Whenever this union [of heavenly light and earthly fire, of spirit and nature] appears incarnate in human form, this person testifies – with the testimony of life – for the divine unity of spirit and nature, reveals this unity anew to the world of man which again and again becomes estranged from it, and evokes […]
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Reflecting on Matthew 2 7-15
We are studying Matthew 2:7-15 for Sunday, December 20, which is part of the nativity story as told in the gospel of Matthew. Some notes on the text are here (and here). Here are some questions we might want to consider or discuss in class: We might want to think about the way “calling” is […]
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Studying Matthew 2 7-15
We are studying Matthew 2:7-15 for Sunday, December 20; this is the part of Matthew’s story of Jesus’s birth, in which the wise men arrive in Bethlehem. [Some questions on the text are here.] Here are a few notes on this text: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: We are still in the opening of Matthew’s gospel. As […]
Matters of Interpretation 