The Gospel we have heard this morning may sound a little bit confusing (at least it sounded a bit confusing to me when I first read it!) and I think there are two reasons for it that we will need to unpack: One reason of contents, one reason of form. – As for the contents,…

Well I don’t know about you but, so far, I didn’t like Jacob very much. It’s interesting isn’t it how often in the Bible we meet some characters that aren’t that likable, and not only the villains but also those who are supposed to be the good guys. Jacob later renamed “Israel”, father of twelve…

If you’re starting to wonder whether you have heard this same passage of the Gospel last week, it means that you have been paying attention! The passage we have read last week was indeed quite similar to the one we have today, both in form and in content: Jesus tells the story of a sower…

The story of Jacob and Esau has always sounded quite disturbing to me. I remember thinking as a kid: Why would Esau do something that stupid? I imagine that at the time, if I could easily relate to the idea that my sister would try to exchange something I cherished for something of lesser value,…

I am afraid I am going to repeat myself because I have often mentioned that the Book of Genesis was written during the Exile, when the Jews were living in captivity in Babylon, after they had lost their land, their city and their temple. We have already talked about how putting their stories into writing…

This Sunday again we have heard a difficult passage of the Gospel…What I think we need to have in mind though is that it is a difficult Gospel because it is a Gospel for difficult times. The passage picks up where we left off last week, let’s remember that what Jesus is doing is that…

The passage of Matthew’s we have just heard is generally seen as a sort of “turning point” in the Gospel. Until then, Jesus has done all the teaching and all the preaching and all the healing, but now he sends the disciples on a mission to do all these things. You may actually notice a…

Well, it looks like today in our readings we meet a lot of different people with very different stories! – To start with we have Abram, an old man with seemingly no much life left in him, and God promises him that he will become the Father of all of God’s people. – In the…

As we celebrate today the feast of the Holy Trinity, the lectionary invites us to listen again to the story of creation, when God “fathered” the whole earth. You may remember that, during Lent, we already spent some time on the book of Genesis, and we talked about how this book was born during a…

Last week during our conversation after the service, we talked about the Creeds. One of the things we said that is important to notice is that our articles of faith, summarized in the Creeds, are always based on the Scriptures, they are always based on the story. And so, instead of being there to tell…