Month: May 2026

Trinity Sunday — Matthew 28:16–20 And when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted [Matthew 28:17]. It is the ending of a Gospel, and Matthew will not let it be tidy. The eleven disciples have traveled to Galilee — to a mountain Jesus designated, though Matthew does not name it. They have made the journey in obedience to an instruction they received before they understood what it was for. And when they see him, the text says, they worshiped him. But some doubted. That sentence has unsettled readers for centuries, and rightly so. This is the climax of the Gospel — the risen Christ, the gathered disciples, the…

Pentecost Sunday — John 20:19–23 He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” [John 20:22]. It is the evening of the first day of the week, and the doors are locked. John tells us why: fear of the authorities. The crucifixion was not a private affair. It was a public execution, state-sponsored, designed to send a message. They knew how these things worked. If the Romans and the Temple leadership had disposed of Jesus so efficiently, the movement around him was not likely to be left undisturbed. So they locked the doors. But there is something else in that room alongside the fear of arrest. The…

Seventh Sunday of Easter — 1 Peter 4:12–14; 5:6–11, RCL, Year A Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you [1 Peter 4:12]. There is a New Testament letter that most of us read the way we might read someone else’s mail. We recognize the language. We affirm the theology. And we sense, if we are honest, that it was written for people living in circumstances rather different from our own. That letter is First Peter—the letter that has served as the Epistle reading throughout this year’s Easter season. It is addressed…

Sixth Sunday of Easter — 1 Peter 3:13–22 Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15b). We are well into the Easter season now, and during this wonderful time frame, the Epistle readings have been drawing us into the First Letter of Peter — a circular letter addressed to scattered Christian communities in Asia Minor, people living as what Peter calls “aliens and exiles” in a culture that regards them with suspicion, and occasionally with something sharper than that. Peter’s is a letter about how to live faithfully under pressure. About hope that…