Tag: working preacher

For the love of God is this …

Genuine faith is firmly connected with active love.

… that we obey his commandments.

1 John 5:3 NRSV

Welcome!

On Wednesday, May 1, 2024, we explored 1 John 5:1-6, the epistle pericope appointed for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B (May 5, 2024). Our handout included commentaries on the other appointed texts from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 10:44-48), the Psalms (Psalm 98), and the Gospel according to John (John 15:9-17).

From a commentary on 1 John 5:1-6

1 John reminds its readers that God’s commands are not burdensome. Here again we hear an echo of Jesus, who denounces the religious leaders for loading people down with “heavy burdens hard to bear” (Matthew 23:4). The Greek word that NRSV translates as “heavy” is barus, the same adjective translated as “burdensome” in 1 John 5:3. By contrast, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30). Like Jesus, 1 John insists that God’s commands are not difficult. In essence, they consist in the call to love, “not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:18). Genuine faith, therefore, is firmly connected with active love.

Source: Commentary on 1 John 5:1-6 by Judith Jones posted May 10, 2015 to Working Preacher for Easter 6B

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Most Wednesday mornings a group of us gather online to explore the readings that will be used in worship the following Sunday. Our handout features readings, commentaries, and notes for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 5, 2024) in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. Please: View or download the handout we used to guide our discussion and tune our hearts to the Spirit.

View the Revised Common Lectionary readings appointed for Sunday, May 5, 2024, on the Revised Common Lectionary site curated by the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.

Judith Jones is the Vicar, of St. Stephen & St. Luke by the Sea Episcopal Churches in Waldport, OR. More.

Please return to this site throughout the week to keep learning.

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Be well. Do good. Pay attention. Keep learning.

Image: ChurchArt Pro

Pentecost +4, Proper 9C

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.

Welcome. Our handout features the readings for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost (July 3, 2022) in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.

In our Forum on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, we’ll explore the final portion of the letter to the Galatians. Please view or download the handout we’ll use in our discussion as your own exploration continues.

View the Revised Common Lectionary readings appointed for Sunday, July 3, 2022.

Pay attention. Keep learning.

View or download the Handout for Proper 9, Year C.

View or download the Art for Sunday, July 3, 2022 (Proper 9C) with commentary by Hovak Najarian.

Please come back to this site throughout the week in order to keep learning.

Pentecost +3, Proper 8C

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Welcome. Our handout features the readings for the Third Sunday After Pentecost (June 26, 2022) in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.

In our Forum on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, we’ll explore the portion of the letter to the Galatians that includes Paul’s understanding of the “fruit of the Spirit” and his admonition: ” If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” Please view or download the handout we’ll use in our discussion as your own exploration continues.

View the Revised Common Lectionary readings appointed for Sunday, June 26, 2022.

Pay attention. Keep learning.

View or download the Handout for Proper 8, Year C.

View or download Art for Proper 8, Year C. with commentary by Hovak Najarian.

Please come back to this site throughout the week in order to keep learning.

Pentecost +2, Proper 7C

O my help, come quickly to my aid!

Welcome. Our handout features the readings for the Third Sunday After Pentecost (June 19, 2022) in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.

If we follow the lectionary reading for this Sunday, we enter Psalm 22 right in the middle of an anguished scream.

The psalmist has begun the psalm with a desolate cry of abandonment (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), and then has detailed his 5 Hear what the Spirit is saying Pentecost +2 Proper 7C Week of June 19, 2022 troubles, using vivid metaphors. He is a “worm, and not human” (verse 6). He is surrounded by “bulls,” “lions,” and “dogs” (verses 12-13, 16). He is “poured out like water” (verse 14). And he is not afraid to place blame where blame is due: “You [God] lay me in the dust of death” (verse 15).

And yet, the psalmist also knows where his help lies; strangely enough, from the same source he has just accused of foul play. As we enter the psalm, the psalmist cries, “But you, O LORD, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid!” (verse 19).

Kathryn M. Schifferdecker Professor and Elva B. Lovell Chair of Old Testament Luther Seminary Saint Paul, MN on Working Preacher June 20, 2010

In our Forum on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, we’ll explore Psalm 22 (the entire Psalm, though only verses 18-27 will be used in worship). Please view or download the handout we’ll use in our discussion as your own exploration continues.

Pay attention. Keep learning.

View or download the Handout for Proper 7, Year C including short biographies for Adelaide Teague Case, James Weldon Johnson, and Alban—commemorated by the Church this week.

View or download Art for Proper 7, Year C. with commentary by Hovak Najarian.

Please come back to this site throughout the week in order to keep learning.

Ascension Day Year C

May you be strengthened to proclaim Jesus Christ ….

Welcome. Our handout features the readings for Ascension Day (May 26, 2022) in Year C of our Lectionary.

Jerusha Matsen Neal an Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School writes, “Jesus’ ascension in Acts is no text of glory. It is a text that stands with those in countries far from home, those whose witness has been costly, and those who do not see “convincing proofs” (verse 3) of resurrection. It is, in fact, a passage about a community of faith that relinquishes the “proof” of Christ’s risen body for the “promise” of a Spirit (verses 4-5) coming.”

Ascension Day, for Acts’s disciples, looks more like trust in the face of uncertainty. It looks more like prayerful commitment and costly witness. It looks a lot like today. 

Jerusha Matsen Neal

Called to trust in the face of uncertainty, how do you move to that place of trust? What is called forth in your heart? in your mind? in your will to do something?

Pay attention. Keep learning.

View or download the Handout for Ascension Day, Year C. The full commentary by Jerusha Matsen Neal is included.

Please come back to this site throughout the week in order to keep learning.

Wind Chimes: 1 July 2013

“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. … For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Galatians 5:1, 13-14
Read on Sunday, June 30, 2013

The Revised Common Lectionary provided a very rich fare on Sunday, June 30th. I bring the wind chimes out of storage to keep the music (of the Spirit) going into this new week. Here is a sample of a commentary on Sunday’s reading from Galatians (Chapter 5, verses 1 and 13-25):

Paul makes the strongest possible emphasis on the “you” plural address. Again he frames the sentence with words describing the addressees: “You all,” “brothers,” “You all have been chosen for freedom.” He repeats the confident assertion of 5:1 by making personal and direct and clear, that “you all” have been chosen for freedom indeed, but Paul moves on very quickly to define the freedom.

It is not a wild, abstract freedom from restraint. Paul’s freedom does not create the culture we have become — at least not in his mind or on purpose. Paul proclaims the freedom with the passive voice of having been chosen by an implied agent, God. To be chosen by God for freedom, to have been freed by Christ is to have been freed from the dire results of life lived apart from God. It is also a call into freedom that in some ways mirrors God’s own, that is a freedom dedicated to serving others in love.

I encourage you to read the entire Commentary on Galatians 5:1, 13-25 by Sarah Henrich on Working Preacher.

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You must love your neighbor as yourself

Leviticus 19:18

The chimes are moving freely again. The sounding of the chimes reminds me of love.
What do you hear?