[RCL]: Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28 Peter says it can’t happen: Jesus can’t be allowed to die.  Mind you, this challenge to Jesus follows right after the passage we heard together last week, in which Peter totally gets the question right when Jesus asks him, “Who do you say that…

[RCL] Joel 2:1-2,12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103 or 103:8-14; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10;Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 Ash Wednesday has its choice hymnody, for sure. There are songs that congregations expect to sing every year. There are also popular songs, however, that fit the theme. One such tune flows down the decades to us from the year 1973….

[RCL] Joel 2:1-2,12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103 or 103:8-14; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain.” There are moments for all of us when our lives change forever: When someone is born or when someone dies, or when you get injured or have a…

[RCL] Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3,10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35 There is a very short story Alan Dugan wrote for Poetry magazine called “April.” It unequivocally describes spring in a cold climate. April.  The old man in shining black, with the immense black umbrella, walked down the street like the younger brother of the shadow of…

[RCL]: Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11 “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”…

[RCL] Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18 “’Tis the season to be jolly!” we sing at parties and at church events. Then, on Christmas, we read: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness,…

Humanity vs. the Devil. It’s a tale as old as time. You might know one such story that starts like this: “It’s a story they tell in the border country, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire.         “Yes, Dan’l Webster’s dead—or, at least, they buried him. But every time there’s a thunderstorm around Marshfield, [Massachusetts,]…

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard      Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on…           Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;      She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,           For…

RCL: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47 or Psalm 93; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53 “Who are we going to be after this?” Let us imagine the disciples, gazing up into heaven, witnessing yet another miracle, and wondering that exact thing — the same thing that we now wonder about the end of the pandemic. They, like we,…

[RCL]: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20 Fun fact: before there was coronavirus, the last time “corona” was in the news was during the solar eclipse of 2017. Back then, it didn’t refer to a virus, but to the dazzling light of the sun’s plasma or “atmosphere” that is usually invisible to us,…