Unlike the calendar year, the Church Year does not begin in January, but with Advent, which begins on the Sunday closest to St. Andrew’s Day (November 30th). That’s next Sunday, December 2nd. So, today is the last Sunday of the Church Year. We begin each new Church Year looking for One who comes to deliver us in God’s name, the one who Christians see as Jesus. Each year the Lectionary focuses the Gospel readings on Matthew, Mark, or Luke, with readings from the Gospel of John interwoven through each year. This past year has been Mark’s Year, and, next week… Continue reading →

Well, they are playing Christmas music (or really, “holiday-ish music”) at the mall where we walk most every day. I block this out as much as I can. They did wait until the day after Halloween this year to start us on the annual binge to Bethlehem. It’s quite telling that our culture – at least the commercial part of it has eliminated Thanksgiving altogether from the calendar, it seems. Each year I like to stop and savour the whole flavour of being thankful before going forward into Advent and Christmas. There’s an old German hymn, not in our current… Continue reading →

Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and your neighbor as yourself.

According to our Gospel Lesson, one day, in the midst of Jesus’ last week before his death, a Jewish scribe had been so impressed with Jesus’ relevant responses to questions that he came with a sincere question of his own. He was, it seems looking for some common ground between himself and Jesus. Matthew and Luke are more suspicious than Mark here, who gives this guy from… Continue reading →