The Riverside Gathering Posts

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…

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…