Common Worship and Prayer

INTRODUCTION Advent is about the "coming days." God's people have always lived in great expectation, but that expectation finds specific,...

reign of christ sunday morning prayer (Book of Common WOrship 2018)   INTRODUCTION Even after Israel had experienced the vagaries...

TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST Service of Thanksgiving with Holy Communion  INTRODUCTION Today's readings reflect two of the strains that go...

INTRODUCTION Of all three years of the lectionary cycle, this year's All Saints readings have the most tears. Isaiah and...

TWENTY-third Sunday AFTER PENTECOST INTRODUCTION Can we pray the way Bartimaeus prays? People try to hush him up because by...

TWENTY-SECOND Sunday AFTER PENTECOST INTRODUCTION Today's gospel starts with disciples obsessing over who's number one, which leads Jesus to say...

INTRODUCTION The rich man who comes to ask Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life is a good man, sincere in his asking. Mark's gospel is alone in saying that Jesus looked on him and loved him. Out of love, not as judgment, Jesus offers him an open door to life: sell all you own and give it to the poor. Our culture bombards us with the message that we will find life by consuming. Our assemblies counter this message with the invitation to find life by divesting for the sake of the other.

Today's gospel combines a saying that makes many of us uncomfortable with a story we find comforting. Jesus' saying on divorce is another of his rejections of human legislation in favor of the original intent of God's law. Jesus' rebuke of the disciples who are fending off the children should challenge us as well. What does it mean to receive the kingdom of God as a child does?