Following Matthew in Year A, we continue walking with Jesus in our worship and overhearing his teaching during the most prolific period of his earthly ministry. In the Gospel reading appointed for Proper 11A, Matthew 13:24-30, 34-43, we hear our Lord’s presentation and interpretation of what the disciples call “the parable of the weeds in…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 10A
In this early stage of Year A, with the Gospel of Matthew as our guide, we are walking with Jesus through the early stages of his ministry in Galilee. Starting with Proper 10A, for three consecutive Sundays, we will sit with the crowds to whom Jesus tells his parables focused on planting, sowing, and growth…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 9A
In Year A, having finished three consecutive weeks of Jesus’ hard instructions to his disciples going out on mission, the character of our worship in Proper 9A takes on a more peaceful tone. The Gospel reading from Matthew 11:25-30 is a bridge assignment between the end of Matthew’s second teaching discourse and the third discourse,…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 8A
It is still hard going in this early stage of Pentecost Year A. Through the collect and readings assigned for Proper 8A, the church calls for worship, yielding faith in the face of opposition, even judgment of end-time proportions. The assigned Gospel reading, Matthew 10:34-42, brings us to the third and final section of Jesus’…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 7A
The major themes of Jesus’ teaching discourse to the disciples as they prepare to go on mission are the priority of proclaiming the gospel in Christian service and the inevitable resistance all messengers of the gospel will face. It is no wonder, then, that the messaging of the church in these early weeks of Pentecost…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 6A
Still at the beginning of the Pentecost season, as we come to the readings and collect for Proper 6A, we continue to receive in our worship revelation from God for day-to-day life, walking with Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit. The Gospel reading, Matthew 9:35-10:15, takes us into Matthew’s second major teaching discourse by…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 5A
At Proper 5A, the church moves us, in our worship, to contemplate, from the Gospel of Matthew, the events and teachings of Jesus’ early ministry in Galilee after the Sermon on the Mount. (Much of the Sermon on the Mount itself is covered on Sundays during Epiphany Year A and then later in the numbered…
Today in the Spirit: Trinity Sunday A
Trinity Sunday is the only principal feast in the Prayer Book assigned in recognition of a church doctrine. So central is the church’s confession of God as one in three persons, and so hard-won in its early history, that the appointment of the first Sunday after Pentecost as Trinity Sunday became a fixture in the…
Today in the Spirit: Pentecost Sunday A (Whitsunday)
“Pentecost Sunday already!?” While this might well be our reaction to the arrival of this feast day on the church calendar every year, we can only imagine how the disciples felt who were ordered by Jesus to go to Jerusalem and wait until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). As they…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 7A (Sunday After Ascension)
The Sunday after Ascension Day is the seventh Sunday of the Easter season (just as Pentecost Sunday is the eighth Sunday of Easter). Titling the Sunday as such in the BCP 2019 is a return to the tradition of earlier Anglican Prayer Books, which distinguished Ascensiontide (the ten-day period from Ascension Day to Pentecost) from…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 6A
Easter 6 Sunday is the last before Ascensiontide, the ten-day period between the remembrance of Jesus’ ascension on the Thursday following this Sunday and Pentecost Sunday. From earlier prayer books, the BCP 2019 has restored the title “Rogation Sunday” to this day. Rogation comes from the Latin rogatio which means “asking.” This Sunday precedes the…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 5A
By Easter 5A, we have noticed in our Sunday worship that this year the church is leading us through a series of the “I am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. In fact, five of the seven “I am” statements in John are contained in the assigned Gospel readings over nine weeks from…
