Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A — Jeremiah 20:7-13 O LORD, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. — Jeremiah 20:7 In our OT lesson for this Sunday, Jeremiah does not begin with a prayer. He begins with an accusation. The Hebrew verb translated “enticed” is…

Copyright 2026. Thomas A. Robinson, all rights reserved. Ruth 2–4 — The wealthy Bethlehem landowner who redeems Ruth the Moabitess and takes her as his wife. Did you see her before your foreman told you, this woman gleaning at the edges of your field, moving with a quiet dignity that poverty could not diminish, could…

Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A — Romans 4:13–25 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations” [Romans 4:18]. There is a temptation, when reading Romans 4, to make it a meditation on the heroism of Abraham’s faith — on what it looks like to believe hard enough, long…

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…