Today we celebrate our church’s name day – the feast of Saint James the Elder. It might be useful to start with some of what Wikipedia calls disambiguation, because there are a lot of James’s who are significant to the church. There is, of course, King James the First of England, who gives us the…
Last week, we began reading a portion of Matthew’s Gospel that tells of Jesus teaching the increasingly large crowds that appear wherever he goes using parables. Today, and for the next few weeks, we will continue to hear what Jesus has to say to his followers, both the stories he tells publicly, and the interpretations of the stories he offers to his…
“Listen! A sower went out to sow.” This is the first of a string of parables that comprise the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew begins this thirteenth chapter by telling us that the things he is talking about happened on the same day as those that end the previous chapter, which is the storyteller’s way of saying that the two narratives…
Most of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the musical setting of the end of today’s Gospel lesson that concludes the first part of Handel’s Messiah. Charles Jennens, Handel’s librettist, changed the scripture text from first person to third to fit the context of the oratorio, but whether it’s Jesus saying “My yoke is easy,” or a chorus singing “His yoke is…