What we have come to call “The Old Testament”, the first part of the Bible for Christians, is believed to have begun to be put into writing during Israel’s captivity in Babylon, in the 6th century before Christ. This would make sense for several reasons: – The first reason is that it wasn’t the masses…
Month: February 2023
Ash Wednesday (A) – Psalm 103: 8-14
“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy* slow to anger and of great kindness” (Psalm 103: 8) I love it that we start our Lenten journey with this passage of the psalm that reminds us that our God is a loving, forgiving God. Psalms are these songs of Ancient Israel that the people used…
Last Epiphany (A) – Matthew 17: 1-9
Today we celebrate the Last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, and it is also an important time of transition. Last week, during our class, we talked about the different seasons of the church, what they mean in terms of rhythms and rites, but also, and mainly, in terms of spirituality, and how these seasons…
Epiphany 6 (A) – Deuteronomy 30: 15-20, Matthew 5: 21-37
If you remember from last week, I told you that today, as we work our way through the Sermon of the Mount, we will talk more about what the Law means for Jesus and how he invites his disciples to obey it. In the meantime though, I had a very good question that I would…
Epiphany 5 (A) – 1 Corinthians 2: 1-16; Matthew 5: 13-20
This week we continue to hear from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. The passage we have today follows right after the Beatitudes we have talked about last week, and next week we will continue reading from what follows right after this text. Now the lectionary tries to present us with Gospel lessons…