Transfiguration Sunday, Cycle B
2 Kings 2:1-12 This account is evidence that there was a tendency in the direction of the deification of Elijah within some Israelite traditions, just as there may have been with regard to Moses (Deuteronomy 34:1-12) and earlier within some Semitic traditions with respect to Enoch (Genesis 5:22-24). The accounts of the ascension of Jesus [...]
Epiphany 9
The Ninth Sunday after the Epiphany is rarely celebrated as such among us. The texts selected for this Sunday are used only when Easter is very late in the Church Year and in Churches in which the Last Sunday after the Epiphany is not celebrated as Transfiguration Sunday. Deuteronomy 5:12-15 Within the guidelines provided in [...]
Epiphany 8
Perhaps the most significant theme that runs through these four texts is the theme of God’s action in providing something new for the people of God. It may be new or renewed life that God as a loving, gracious Father or Husband supplies. It may be new wine to revive and invigorate (certainly not to [...]
Epiphany 7
In each of these four texts there is an affirmation from God of a sinner or community of sinners and in each text there is an affirmation of God by people. The basic elements of worship are present, therefore, in these texts. Isaiah 43:18-25 Even though the people of God had not honored God with [...]
Epiphany 6 | Ordinary Time 6, Cycle B
“Lord God, mercifully receive the prayers of your people. Help us to see and understand the things we ought to do, and give us grace and power to do them; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It is in the portions of The Prayer of the Day for this Sunday that are italicized above that we see the unifying factor in the four texts selected for this day. Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria, needed help from the Lord God through Naaman’s own servants before he could understand the things that he should do in the cleansing of his body from leprosy in the 2 Kings 5:1-14 Elisha story.
