Reflections on the Common Lectionary
Living the Word
Living the Word is a monthly reflection on the Sunday readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.
Enuma Okoro 8-01-2011
During Ordinary time, the season after Pentecost, it might appear that not much is going on, ecclesially speaking.
Walter Brueggemann 6-15-2011
These Easter readings line out the new life lived by the community of Jesus. They show, on the one hand, that Easter life is dangerous and demanding.
Enuma Okoro 6-03-2011
Jesus says, receive the Holy Spirit, whom you cannot control. Diversity is an essential attribute of a Spirit-filled church.
Walter Brueggemann 3-01-2011
Reflect;ion on the Revisd Common Lectionary, Cycle A: Transfiguration, False Desire to LIfe, Can We Start Again, and High-Water Mark.
Walter Brueggemann 2-01-2011
We enter into a season focused on Christ’s human possibility as a defiant alternative to the human self proposed by the dominant values of our culture.
Walter Brueggemann 1-01-2011
Epiphany is the exhibit of Jesus in the world. The early church was utterly enthralled by Jesus, but did not find it so easy to characterize him. The early followers found that, in his radicality, he outran all of their explanatory categories. But they had to bear witness to him.
For that reason the early church readily appealed to the promissory texts of the Old Testament and found that they anticipated his coming. In the prophetic promises of Isaiah and Jeremiah they found expectations of Jesus. The early church found guidance and comfort in the ancient psalms that celebrated God’s role in lyrical doxology, that acknowledged God as light, and that commanded a neighborly life in the world.
After prophetic promise and psalmic solace and guidance, the church issued its own evangelical conviction that Jesus is the beloved of God, the Word become flesh, the light of the world. They piled up images and phrases, because none was fully adequate to the wonder of his presence. And after all of that imaginative rhetoric, they concluded that it comes down to conduct that reflects his intent. After all of the talk about Jesus, there is the walk. The early church was summoned to a new righteousness, to bold decisions, to vulnerability in the world that attested the new governance of Jesus. Since then, the church has been coming to terms with the reality of Jesus, the one with whom God is well pleased.
Walter Brueggemann 11-01-2010
During November we reach the conclusion of the church year. We remember our dead and ponder the God of life. We begin Advent and the season of alert waiting for the newness that God will give.
Walter Brueggemann 9-01-2010
September 2010: 'Come, Rejoice With Me'; October 2010: The Nature of Faith