Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31 Easter 2B Marks of the resurrected Jesus community or maybe rules for the household of the Risen Lord, that’s what the texts for this second Sunday of Easter reveal. The fellowship of the One who was raised from the dead looks different from the cultural landscape that surrounds it. Those who have experienced and believed the grave-busting power and love of the Son of God respond with transformed lives. At least that’s what happens in the New Testament. “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possession, but everything they owned was held in common.” “We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship is with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are … [Read more...]

Mark 16:1-8               Secrets people take to the grave don’t often stay there. Movies, reality television and soap operas make great use of secrets long buried coming back to life and rendering the living shocked, distressed or utterly amazed. The long-lost heir to the fortune who was thought dead crashes the family reunion. The man he knew as dad, it turns out, was not his biological father. The reason the family immigrated was to seek a new life… but the backstory involved fleeing from the law. Lo and behold the results from the DNA kit that got mailed off reveal an entirely unexpected family heritage. Grave secrets from one generation come back to life in the next no matter how silent the witnesses to them remained. How is that possible when the parties involved are dead and buried? Secrets people take to the grave don’t necessarily stay there. They have a life of their own in family lore, and future generations and communities with a propensity to not mind their … [Read more...]

Mark 11:1-11 Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B Why are you doing this? What are you doing? These two questions are front and center in Mark’s version of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. We could add a few more questions from the other Gospel accounts of this story. Matthew asks: Who is this? Luke’s version posits a specific query: Why are you untying the colt? John doesn’t ask questions so much as state the disciples’ ongoing confusion: “His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.” John’s Gospel must always be read back to front. But Mark emphasizes basic human curiosity: Why are you doing this? What are you doing? It’s the bystanders who ask the disciples as they are untying the colt, “What are you doing?” The disciples do as they are told and relay the message Jesus instructed them to share: “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” … [Read more...]

John 12:20-33 (34-36) Lent 5B Some Greeks want to see Jesus. They must have heard stories about Jesus. Word had gotten around about this Jesus who brought a man back from the dead. Maybe one of the Greeks was a friend of a friend who knew the man born blind who could now see. Maybe they were even members of the crowd who’d waved palm tree branches called, “Hosanna!” Maybe they simply wondered what all the hype was about, and they wanted to see for themselves if there was anything to the wild stories about this man called Jesus. They know enough, these Greeks, to know that Philip is one of Jesus’ followers, so they go to him and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” A simple, straightforward request: We wish to see Jesus. Philip – the one with a Greek name, the one Jesus asked to feed the 5,000, the one who invites Nathanael to “Come and see” for himself that this man from Nazareth is indeed the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote – goes to Andrew and the two of … [Read more...]

Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21 Lent 4B John 3:16. Even in this age when education through memorization has fallen out of favor, many Christians know this verse by heart. In a church I served, every Sunday school student in elementary school was required to recite this verse from memory. (One student, I am told, insisted on doing so while standing on his head. But, he got the job done.) John 3:16. Printed on shopping bags of some retailers, held up on posters at sporting events, embossed on vanity car license plates in every state. John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The gospel in one verse, right? A lovely encapsulation of the character of God and the work of Jesus Christ. Much catchier than, say, John 3:14: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so much the Son of Man be lifted up.” Much more inclusive sounding than John 3:18: “Whoever … [Read more...]

Exodus 20:1-17; John 2:13-22 Lent 3B Jesus, early in his ministry in John’s Gospel, ventures to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. He will, of course, be in Jerusalem again, near the end of his ministry and his life. The Synoptic Gospels have Jesus in Jerusalem for Passover once, where he will cleanse the temple shortly before his arrest and death. Not so for John. The cleansing of the temple takes place in chapter two, just after he performed his first sign in Cana turning water into wine, long before his final meal with his closest friends. The newly-called disciples get a glimpse of an angry, unyielding Jesus who speaks truth to power from the onset of his mission. No gentle, lamb-carrying Savior here. I wonder if the whip-of-cords, table-turning Jesus frightened or thrilled them? I admit that a part of me pumps my fist at the thought of Jesus giving those making God’s house a marketplace what they have coming to them. You show them, Jesus! God’s house is not a … [Read more...]