Matthew 25:31-46 A common theme in popular movies involves a villainous character who does a lot of harm to a lot of people. Good people are killed, and the evil character seems to be prevailing, until justice is, in the end, meted out to him: either by a vengeful survivor hero, a skilled martial arts…
Exodus 20:22-24; Exodus 32:1-20 Prior to the events that are described in today’s Old Testament lesson from the Book of Exodus, and prior to the time when Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive further instruction from the Lord, God had already begun to reveal to the people of Israel how he wanted to…
Matthew 9:1-8 In today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, we heard the story of the paralytic whose friends brought him to Jesus, with the hope that Jesus would heal him. This story also appears in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, who add the detail that the man’s friends, because of the crowds, opened up the…
James 4:1-10 Please listen with me to a reading from the fourth chapter of the Epistle of St. James, beginning at the first verse. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You…
1 Kings 17:17-24 We are told in the First Book of Kings – in the section of that book that immediately precedes the verses that were read as today’s Old Testament lesson – that during a time of severe drought, the Lord told the prophet Elijah: “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and…
St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist Have you ever thought about the politics that were present among the disciples of Jesus? I’m not referring just to the way in which they related to each other. I mean the disciples’ involvement in the secular politics of the day, in that corner of the Roman Empire in which…
Mark 7:31-37 During his earthly ministry, Jesus performed many miracles of physical healing. A common feature in these miracles was that Jesus spoke healing into the person who was sick or disabled. Usually this speaking was accompanied by his laying his hands on the person, but not always. In the case of the servant of…
Ephesians 2:1-10 Today’s lesson from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians is filled with contrasts. A good way to know the precise meaning and application of a point that Paul expresses in this text is to view that point in light of the contrasting point that Paul also sets forth. So, for example, he tells…
St. Bartholomew – John 1:43-51 “Seeing is believing.” “What you see is what you get.” These commonly-expressed sentiments illustrate how much value we tend to put on the ability to see things, with our eyes, in our determination of what is true and what is real. Today is the feast day of Nathanael Bartholomew, one…