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Preaching Paths 31 December 2023
Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Luke 2:21-40 opens with a brief narration of four rites that Mary and Joseph undertake after Jesus’ birth, as required by Jewish law. Jesus is circumcised on the eighth day, and he is publicly named “Jesus” (as Gabriel had instructed Mary). After forty days, Mary undergoes post-partum…
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Preaching Paths 24 December 2023
Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary The visit of God’s heavenly emissary, Gabriel, to a young woman in insignificant Nazareth (Luke1:26-38) is not Gabriel’s first birth-announcing errand in Luke. Some six months earlier, Gabriel visited the priest Zechariah to announce that his barren wife Elizabeth would give birth to a son, God’s appointed…
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Third Sunday of Advent,17th December 2023
N.B. We have decided to focus this week on the Luke text suggested for Advent 3B as an alternative to the psalm, Luke 1:44b-55 (Mary’s Magnificat). The usual Gospel text for Advent 3B, John 1:6-8, 19-28, focuses, as did the Advent 2B text (Mark 1:1-8), on John the Baptist. Online resources for John 1 abound.…
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Preaching Paths 17 December 2023
Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary NOTE: We have decided to focus this week on the Magnificat (Luke 1:44b-55), suggested for Advent 3B as an alternate to the psalm of the day. The usual Gospel text for Advent 3B (John 1:6-8, 19-28) focuses, as did last week’s text (Mark 1:1-8), on John the…
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Preaching Paths 10 December 2023 Advent 2B Mark 1:1-8
Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Mark 1:1, the opening verse of today’s lection (Mk 1:1-8), is not a complete sentence, but a title. It sounds benign enough in English translation; but interpreters of Mark’s gospel suggest that, considered within the context of its Hellenic linguistic and political context, this is a provocative…
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Preaching Paths 3 December 2023
Advent 1B plunges us without ceremony into the midst of Jesus’ longest and most troubling speech in Mark, chapter 13. Jesus draws directly on several OT texts for images of devastating natural disaster and catastrophic conflict (vv 7-8). He predicts intense persecution for Christians (vv 9-13) and in the near term, the destruction of the…
