Lesson Plans That Work
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 17: September 2, 2012
Temple security guards, those responsible for guarding the purity of the religion, are getting hung up on rules that seem urgent to them but they are missing what is important. Jesus dismisses their concerns about who washed what and insists that these concerns are reducing the ability to hear and do God's word. What is important is not what goes into the body, it is what comes out of our hearts
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 16: August 26, 2012
The fork in the road. The moment of truth. The choice. Will we do things the way we've always done it, or will we take a leap of faith? "This teaching is difficult!" say those who have trekked with Jesus. Will we risk the spirit that gives life or will we pin all our hopes on "the flesh”? Jesus invites us into the unfathomable joys of the kingdom of God. What will we choose?
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 15: August 19, 2012
Nutritionists will assure us that we are what we eat. Jesus, long before nutritionists, told us that we become what we eat. And so Jesus invites us to become one with him by eating his flesh and by drinking his blood. Our task is to trust that "whoever eats this bread will live forever."
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 14: August 12, 2012
Those entrusted with keeping the faith are getting nervous. “Hold it,” they say. “Isn't this Joseph and Mary's kid? We know them well and have watched their child, Jesus, grow up. How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven?’ How are we to understand this Jesus to be the ‘living bread’?” Each of us today is also on a journey into trusting this bread of life.