The Riverside Gathering Posts

Fifth Sunday of Easter — 1 Peter 2:2–10 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation [1 Peter 2:2]. For the past several weeks, the Epistle readings appointed for the Easter season have come from the same letter, 1 Peter — written to communities of Christian believers scattered across Asia Minor, men and women living as what Peter calls “aliens and exiles” in a world that does not share their allegiances. The letter opens in a register of sustained doxology: living hope, imperishable inheritance, a faith more precious than gold. It is elevated language, and it is meant to be…

Fourth Sunday of Easter — 1 Peter 2:19–25 For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly [1 Peter 2:19]. The passage the Lectionary gives us this week [the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A] begins at verse 19. But it begins in the middle of something. A few words earlier, Peter addresses household slaves directly — not their masters, not the heads of households who held power over them, but the slaves themselves. That is already unusual. Ancient household codes, the genre Peter is working within here, were typically addressed to the paterfamilias, the male head of the household, who…

Third Sunday of Easter — 1 Peter 1:17–23 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake (1 Peter 1:20). There is a phrase near the opening of this week’s Epistle passage [1 Peter 1:17-23, Third Sunday of Easter, RCL, Year A] that has a way of stopping the reader cold — if the reader is paying attention. Peter tells his audience to invoke God as Father—a familiar enough practice. But in the same breath, Peter reminds them that this Father judges all people impartially, according to their deeds. With this in mind, Peter says, live your lives…

Second Sunday of Easter — 1 Peter 1:3–9 Although you have not seen him, you love him [1 Peter 1:8]. The letter we call First Peter is addressed to Christians scattered across five Roman provinces in what is now western Turkey — people living, as the letter puts it, as “exiles of the diaspora.” They are not exiles in the geographic sense; most have probably never lived anywhere else. But they are strangers in their own culture, resident aliens in a world that does not share their loyalties or hopes. I spent two weeks recently in that part of the world. It is beautiful, layered with history, and still marked…

John 19:25 — One of the women who stood near the cross at the crucifixion of Jesus, named once in Scripture, otherwise unknown. No one will remember her name. She knows this, standing here in the thin shadow of the cross, unable to look away— not from courage, but because love has taken that option from her. She cannot climb to Him. She cannot stop this. So she does the only thing left: she walks with Him in her mind through what His eyes may still be seeing. She hopes He remembers the river— John standing waist-deep in the current, water streaming from his great dark beard, the sky opening…

Palm Sunday — Matthew 21:1–11 This coming Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday—the hinge of the liturgical year where messianic hope and messianic failure occupy the same frame. We will wave palms and hear the Passion narrative in the same service. Matthew’s Gospel, however, invites us to sit with a particular tension within the Palm Sunday reading itself—one that most of us have never noticed. When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” (Matthew 21:10). The crowds have recognized something. They wave branches. They raise their voices. Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! (21:9).…

Fifth Sunday in Lent — Ezekiel 37:1-14 Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely [Ezekiel 37:11]. There is a kind of despair that does not weep. It doesn’t announce itself with tears or collapse. It simply goes quiet. A friend of mine, a capable and credentialed man who had built a solid career, lost his job when circumstances shifted and his natural advantages evaporated. He told me about sitting at a stoplight one afternoon. The light turned green. He just sat there. “What was the point of moving forward?” The cars behind him eventually stirred him back into motion, but something in…

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…