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RCL: Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 54; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 Note: During the 2024 Season after Pentecost, Sermons That Work will use Track 2 readings for sermons and Bible studies. Please consult our archives for many additional Track 1 resources from prior years. Jeremiah 11:18-20 Jeremiah has sometimes been called “the weeping prophet,” and it’s…
In this episode of Prophetic Voices, we’ll be discussing the lectionary for Proper 20 (B): Proverbs 31:10-31, Mark 9:30-37, Acts 17, and James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a. Our amazing guests this week are: Prophetic Voices is hosted by the Rev. Isaiah “Shaneequa” Brokenleg, The Episcopal Church’s staff officer for Racial Reconciliation. For more information on Becoming Beloved…
[RCL]: Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22 or Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 54; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 Note: During the 2024 Season after Pentecost, Sermons That Work will use Track 2 readings for sermons and Bible studies. Please consult our archives for many additional Track 1 resources from prior years. O God, the light of the…
RCL: Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. One of the unique literary elements reported throughout Mark’s gospel is the disciples’ lack of understanding. At times, the disciples are depicted as confused, challenged, and even discouraged by…
RCL: Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 Proverbs 31:10-31 The grand finale to the book of Proverbs—a book which one scholar describes as “devoted to cultivating wise men”—is a husband’s tribute to the “capable wife” (v. 10), herself a picture of wisdom. This string of proverbial pearls is a Hebrew acrostic poem—an…
Mark’s Gospel was the first written. It is the shortest. Likely it was a one-person play, something that was first memorized and shared via oral tradition. Only in time did it go from one-person dramatic storytelling to gospel text, written down, copied, and eventually read throughout the Church and the world. Mark’s Greek is quick…
Proverbs 31:10–31 How did this description of “a capable wife” strike you? For some, it may seem a model of self-sacrificing generosity and a poetic celebration of the valuable roles women played in ancient society (and still play, in many cultures, today). For others, it may reek of patriarchal inequality and seem of little relevance…
Proverbs 31:10–31 How did this description of “a capable wife” strike you? For some, it may seem a model of self-sacrificing generosity and a poetic celebration of the valuable roles women played in ancient society (and still play, in many cultures, today). For others, it may reek of patriarchal inequality and seem of little relevance…
For much of Christian history, being identified as a “disciple of Jesus” has been considered high praise. The disciples, after all, were the handpicked group of followers who lived, learned, and labored alongside Jesus. They were commissioned to heal the sick, baptize sinners, and proclaim the Good News of God in Christ to the ends…
Proverbs 31:10-31 This, to me, is a challenging passage. It is difficult to look beyond the immediate visceral reaction to the patriarchal assumptions about a woman’s life and worth being connected to her husband – thus the description of the “capable wife.” These assumptions would have been expected and accepted when Proverbs was written. And…
In the preface to his 1522 translation of the New Testament, Martin Luther famously refers to the Letter of James – from which our second reading today is taken – as a “straw-letter,” or an “Epistle of Straw,” as it is more often called. What he meant by this comment has been the subject of…
Sometimes the expanse of centuries between when the scriptures were written and when we, in the twenty-first century, are reading them seems to disappear. The readings today that supposedly come from Wisdom and James couldn’t possibly have been written that long ago. They must have been written in our time – in our generation, or…
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