The Riverside Gathering Posts

Fourth Sunday in Lent — 1 Samuel 16:1–13 “How long will you grieve over Saul?” — 1 Samuel 16:1 In March 2017, our youngest grandchild at the time, Everett — son of Blair and Sarah — was baptized at Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church. It was a significant day within the Robinson clan. Pastor Katie had kindly asked me to assist with worship, so I would serve as Lector, offer the historic questions of faith to Blair and Sarah, and offer the baptismal prayer over the water. I planned to arrive a few minutes past ten. On my way into town, I decided to grab a quick drive-thru breakfast — coffee…

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” [John 4:4-7] Last week we met Nicodemus — learned, respected, religiously sophisticated — coming to Jesus by night, seeking confirmation of what he already believed he understood. Jesus responded not with affirmation but with confrontation: you must be born from above.…

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person” [John 3:1–2]. The Gospel reading for the Second Sunday in Lent (John 3:1–17) may be one of the most familiar passages in all of Scripture — and therein lies the problem. We know this text. We know it so well that John 3:16 has become perhaps the most quoted verse in the Bible, reduced to bumper stickers and signs…

The lectionary readings for the First Sunday in Lent (Year A) pair two narratives of temptation: the familiar account from Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-7, where the first humans encounter the serpent in the garden of Eden, and Matthew 4:1-11, where Jesus faces Satan’s threefold testing in the wilderness. Both texts explore the nature of human desire and divine limit, but they do so by presenting us with starkly different responses to what is offered and what is forbidden. Is the Creator allowed to have something within which He delights alone? The question sounds almost impertinent, yet it strikes at the heart of the Genesis narrative. God places the human creatures…

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light (Matthew 17:1–2). He took the three up the mountain. Peter, James, John—always the three. We didn’t ask why. We’d stopped asking. We watched them disappear into the mist and tried not to notice the familiar sting. What do nine disciples talk about when the inner circle climbs without them? We busied ourselves, mended nets, pretended not to look up at the peak. Then the father came, dragging…

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified [1 Corinthians 2:1-2, a portion of the Epistle reading for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year A]. In 1986, when I entered Duke Divinity School at thirty-five, I arrived with expectations shaped by a decade of professional life. I wanted depth. I wanted to understand the theological architecture beneath what I’d learned in Sunday school and church. I wanted access to the tradition’s wisdom—systematic theology, biblical interpretation, church history. The…

Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel [Micah 6:1-2, a portion of the OT reading for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year A]. The prophet Micah describes what biblical scholars call a covenant lawsuit. YHWH summons Israel to court. The mountains and hills serve as jury—ancient witnesses who’ve seen everything, who were there when the covenant was made, who can testify to what has transpired. YHWH…

Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction [1 Corinthians 1:10 (Christian Standard Bible), a portion of the Epistle reading for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year A]. Paul wrote these words to a fractured church. The Corinthians were quarreling—forming parties around their favorite teachers and preachers. “I belong to Paul.” “I belong to Apollos.” “I belong to Cephas” [1:12]. Some even claimed, with what we can only imagine was a certain…

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. [Mark 8:22]. They said his name was Jesus.I heard it first as rumor,then as hope in voices I had trustedall my life. My brother took my elbow—the familiar grip I'd known since childhood—and said, "We're taking you to him." I did not ask if he could heal.By then I'd learned which questionshurt more than the darkness. But when we reached the edge of sound and crowd,different hands found mine.Not my brother's.Gentle, yes, but strange. "Come," he said,and led me away from everything I knew—the voices fading,the village sounds growing distant. I had lived…

This Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, and the Lectionary pairs the Gospel account of Jesus's baptism (Matthew 3:13-17) with Isaiah 42:1-9, one of the so-called Servant Songs. The pairing invites us to see Jesus in Isaiah’s servant, to see Jesus as God's chosen one, anointed with the Spirit, beloved and delighted in. The resonances are unmistakable, and for two millennia Christians have read these Isaiah passages as prophetic foreshadowing of Christ. In the original time frame of the text, however, the servant in Isaiah 42 almost certainly refers to Israel itself, not to some future messianic figure. Throughout Isaiah 40-55, “servant” is covenant language describing Israel’s unique…