Christmas Eve Readings for Advent IV Readings for Christmas I Recently, I read a book.  Given my previous profession, as well as my current one, it would not surprise me if you were to think: “So, what’s so noteworthy about that.  You have devoted your entire life to reading books.  That’s what professors and priests …

1 Advent Psalm 80:1–7,16–18; Isaiah 64:1–9; 1 Corinthians 1:3–9; Mark 13:24–37 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. Mark 13:36 Should you remember nothing else of that which I share with you this morning, remember this: Advent is not about counting down the days until Christmas Eve, our celebration …

25 Pentecost Psalm 123; Judges 4:1–7; I Thessalonians 5:1–11; Matthew 25:14–30 So our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he shows us his mercy. Ps. 123:3 We have resisted in this great country of ours the pressures to establish a state church, something our all too human founders knew from Europe.  Then, and …

21 Pentecost Psalm 96; Isiah 45:1–7; I Thessalonians 1:1–10; Matthew 22:15–22 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. Ps.24:1 So spake the psalmist.  And Jesus said, according to Matthew’s record, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things …