Ordinary Time

In our walk with Jesus through the lectionary year, the “ordinary” (numbered) season “After Pentecost” generally begins with Gospel selections highlighting the teachings and events of our Lord’s life after the calling of the disciples (the calling itself being featured in Epiphany). As the Gospel of Mark exposes the reader early on to Jesus’ conflict…

The Church of England, from its beginning, established Trinity Sunday as a principal feast on the church calendar, the Sunday following Pentecost Sunday (Whitsunday), and before the Sundays that followed during the long “ordinary” (numbered) phase of Sundays After Pentecost (or After Trinity). The assigned readings for Trinity Sunday are different in each of the…

We now move to the second of three weeks in a pre-Advent period at the end of the Pentecost season, Year A. The Gospel reading assigned in Matthew 25:14-30 is our Lord’s telling of The Parable of the Talents (also found in Luke 19:12-27, but in a distinct form and different time of Jesus’ ministry)….

For us as worshipers, the next few weeks of the Sunday lectionary readings in Pentecost make for a pre-Advent period of preparation before the new church year. The focus of our attention is moved to the theme of right living in readiness for the end times. In Year A, that shift takes place with the…

It is in these latter weeks of the season after Pentecost, prior to the pre-Advent presentation of our Lord’s teachings on the end times, that the church assigns the hardest teachings of Jesus on Christian living. Throughout these weeks in Year A, it has been a hard slog through teaching on the theme of hypocrisy,…

We continue in the liturgical year through the period leading up to his crucifixion in which Jesus is tested by the religious leaders of Jerusalem. In Year A, we skip the narrative with the query of the Sadducees about marriage at the resurrection (that comes in Year C) and move to the Pharisees’ questioning Jesus…

In Year A, we now follow in the footsteps of our Lord to the days in which the religious leaders in Jerusalem sought to trap Jesus in order that they might execute him. We will hear first, out of Matthew 22:15-22, their question to him as to whether it is right to pay taxes to…

In Year A, Proper 23 takes us to the third in that series of parables in Matthew delivered by Jesus to the chief priests and the Pharisees in Jerusalem. The Parable of the Wedding Feast, focused on the invitation to and rejection by a first set of privileged guests, highlights the condemnation that results from…

In Proper 22A, for a Gospel reading, the Church assigns the second in a series of three parables of Jesus in Matthew addressed to the religious leaders of Jerusalem in the week leading up to the crucifixion. Spoken right after the Parable of the Two Sons assigned last Sunday, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants…

Using the assigned readings in Proper 21A, the church takes us forward in Matthew to Jesus’ teaching in the temple after his final entry into Jerusalem. The Gospel reading in Matthew 21:28-32 is the Parable of the Two Sons. Our Lord’s primary purpose in giving this parable (found only in Matthew) is to illustrate the…