As we enter the season of Lent, our liturgical journey takes us from the mountaintop of last Sunday’s Transfiguration directly into the stark wilderness where Jesus faces testing. In Luke’s account, which serves as the Gospel reading appointed for this Sunday [Luke 4:1-13, RCL, Year C], we read that Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit,”…

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray [Luke 9:28]. In all three annual cycles of the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel reading for the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday is the Transfiguration story. This year, Year C, gives…

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt” [Genesis 45:4, a portion of the OT reading assigned for this Sunday, the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year C]. Simple words, spoken in an Egyptian palace, they…

One of my closest friends is a devout Roman Catholic who attends Mass almost daily. While I won’t share his name, many of my Gastonia friends will readily know of whom I speak. He and I share not only a hearty friendship, but a spiritual journey. We are sojourners along the same path, and I…

Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream [Jeremiah 17:7-8a]. It’s 597 BCE. Jerusalem has already witnessed its first deportation to Babylon. Now, its remaining leaders face a wrenching decision: submit to Babylonian domination…

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so…

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,”Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy”…

All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate… They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses …. He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and women and those who could…

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding [John 2:1-2, a portion of the Gospel reading assigned for this Sunday, the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year C]. In John’s Gospel, the…

Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” [Luke 3:21-22]. Last…