SPCK
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Lent Deuteronomy 26.1–11 Romans 10.8b–13 Luke 4.1–13 These readings are not about ‘temptation’ so much as about true worship. Jesus recognized his temptations as distractions from worshipping and trusting the one true God. To see temptation in terms of rules w…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sunday Next Before Lent Exodus 34.29–end 2 Corinthians 3.12—4.2 Luke 9.28–43 The intriguing thing about Moses coming down the mountain with his face shining was that he didn’t know. He had simply been talking with God; it was only when Aaron and the others met him that he rea…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday before Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday before Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Lent Genesis 2.4b–9, 15–25 Revelation 4 Luke 8.22–25 The goodness and the terror of the created world dominate these readings. From the garden in Genesis to the throne-room in Revelation, all that is done reflects God’s loving creativity, and his sharing …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 3 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 3 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 3 Genesis 45.3–11, 15 1 Corinthians 15.35–38, 42–50 Luke 6.27–38 The resurrection is central to Christianity, not just as a dogma but as a driving principle. Unfortunately, Paul’s writing in this, the earliest discussion of it, is dense and difficult, and some of the regul…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 2 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 2 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 2 Jeremiah 17.5–10 1 Corinthians 15.12–20 Luke 6.17–26 Blessings and woes: the upside-down world of the gospel, addressing, as Jeremiah had done, the heart’s self-deceptions, and allowing YHWH to test the mind and search the heart. The woes read like a list of contemporary…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 1 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 1 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 1 Isaiah 6.1–13 1 Corinthians 15.1–11 Luke 5.1–11 ‘The holy seed is its stump.’ Isaiah’s vision in the Temple leaves him with a dreadful commission, to inform God’s people of inevitable exile. The nation will be like a tree felled and burnt. But when the worst has occurred…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Ezekiel 43.27—44.4 1 Corinthians 13.1–13 Luke 2.22–40 Ezekiel had seen the glory of the Lord abandoning Jerusalem and the Temple to their fate (chs 10—11). Fittingly, it is he who describes, in the strange visions of chapters 43—44, the return of tha…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Epiphany Nehemiah 8.1–3, 5–6, 8–10 1 Corinthians 12.12–31a Luke 4.14–21 Read the text, and give the sense. Both matter. The first is given, there on the page. The second is risky, a matter of prayer and the Spirit, a deep breath and taking the plunge. History …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Epiphany Isaiah 62.1–5 1 Corinthians 12.1–11 John 2.1–11 Nuptial imagery rings through the Bible like a peal of wedding bells. The first two chapters of Genesis reach their climax in the creation of man and woman in God’s image; the last two chapters of Rev…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Epiphany Isaiah 43.1–7 Acts 8.14–17 Luke 3.15–17, 21–22 We now have the middle of Luke 3 for the second time in four weeks, and verses 19–20 are still missing. This mightn’t matter so much if they didn’t relate as closely as they do to the underlying themes of…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Day of Pentecost Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Day of Pentecost Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Day of Pentecost John 14.8-17 [25-27] Gaze on a wood in a storm, the trees blown every which way by the invisible wind. Branches are stripped of their leaves and the weaker boughs are broken, and fall to the forest floor. Listen to the rage of the storm, rushing through a garden,…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Seventh Sunday of Easter John 17.20-26 Gaze on the disciples, trudging down the hillside after the Ascension, overwhelmed by the shock of losing the presence of Jesus yet again. Will absence make the heart grow fonder, or will it be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’? Some…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Sixth Sunday of Easter John 14.23-29 Gaze on John, frowning with concentration as Jesus continues to deliver his lengthy ‘farewell’. He is straining to remember it all, and to understand how all the twists and turns build into the overarching vindication of God’s purpose in J…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fifth Sunday of Easter John 13.31-35 Gaze on the supper table. The meal is over, the table strewn with crumbs, the cups empty of wine, and the plates greasy. The feast is finished and the disciples are tired. They are all anxious after they have been warned of betrayal, and c…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday of Easter John 10.22-30 Gaze on a rough, stormy day in Jerusalem. Our usual picture of the Holy Land is of sun and heat, and a life led in the open air, but there can be cold winds and rain, too. Jesus is sheltering in one of the inner courts of the Temple. It’s…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Third Sunday of Easter Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Third Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Third Sunday of Easter John 21.1-19 Gaze on another dawn, another occasion when at first all is in shadow until Jesus illuminates the day for the disciples. Gaze on another setting when things are going badly: if there are no fish, at best the disciples won’t eat, and at wo…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Second Sunday of Easter Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Second Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Second Sunday of Easter John 20.19-31 Gaze on the faces of the disciples, their jaws clenched, eyes half shut, pictures of defeat. So far we have been gazing on expressions of fright and grief, of doubt and confusion. They’ve seen the stone rolled away, and they’ve seen the e…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - Easter Day Year C