Meditations

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…