Tag: jesus

  • Preaching Paths 2 June 2024 Proper 4B

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Today’s text, Mark 2:23-3:6, presents two scenes in which questions around sabbath observance are at stake. If we trace our way backward through these scenes and the preceding ones, we discover a concatenation of issues, each “nested,” in a sense, within a broader one.  We find that…

  • Proper 4 (9) Second Sunday after Pentecost, 2nd June 2024

    Mark 2:23-3:62:23 One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 2:24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 2:25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did…

  • Preaching Paths 26 May 2024 TRINITY Year B

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary On occasion, preachers find themselves taking issue with editorial divisions of a biblical text, as I do with our chosen text for Trinity Sunday Year B, Romans 8:12-17. Commentators express consternation at the “awkward transition” from v 13 to v 14, yet take for granted the editors’…

  • Preaching Paths 19 May 2024 Pentecost Sunday

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Why, one might ask, would we preach from John when Luke’s dazzling Acts 2 account of the Spirit poured out is on the lectionary menu? We can preach from John without setting Acts aside.  A celebrative presentation of Acts 2:1-21 is fitting every Pentecost Sunday. Overlapping readings…

  • Preaching Paths 12 May 2024 Easter 7B

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary The Gospel reading today, John 17:6-19, is the middle section of Jesus’ intercessory prayer, the final chapter of the “Farewell Discourses” (John 13-17). Here, the one who is God’s Word embodied in the world communes with the divine Source, the one he calls “Father,” about his mission…

  • Preaching Paths 5 May 2024 Easter 6B

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Today’s lection, John 15:9-17, continues and completes the Vine discourse of 15:1-8. Today’s reading is best understood in relation to those verses. Two verbs tie the two sections together: “to abide” and “to bear fruit.” Yet, verses 9-17 introduce fresh language, most notably, “love.” Occurring 9 times…

  • Fifth Sunday of Easter & Sixth Sunday of Easter, 28th April & 5th May 2024

    John 15:1-1715:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 15:2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 15:3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 15:4 Abide in…

  • Preaching Paths 28 April 2024 Easter 5B

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary The metaphor of the vine, its gardener,  and its branches is a familiar one (John 15:1-8).  Jesus clearly alludes to OT passages that envision Israel as God’s vine (sometimes lamentably fruitless). The text opens with the last of the “I am” statements (with predicate nominative) in John,…

  • Fourth Sunday of Easter, 21st April 2024

    John 10:11-1810:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 10:12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away–and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 10:13 The hired hand runs…

  • Preaching Paths 21 April 2024 Easter 4B

    Sally A. Brown,  Professor Emerita,  Princeton Theological Seminary Today’s lection, John 10:11-16, presents metaphors familiar to many since childhood. Jesus identifies himself as “the gate” of the sheepfold and the “good shepherd” of the sheep. Most of us have heard (or preached!)  feel-good sermons that romanticize this text as a pastoral “love song” of the…