Worth Doing Badly
A weekly overview of the Bible readings for each Sunday of the Church Year, produced by The Evangelical Lutheran Church of England.
Episodes
Series C, Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke10:41b-42. Mary’s choice of “the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” is choosing the eternal in time. The repetition of the existential choice of the immortal will always be conflicted because, as body, we defaul
Series C, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
But [the lawyer], desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Luke 10:29. The lawyer represents all the self-acclaimed critical thinkers whose criticism is directed outward rather than the self-criticism of repentance that is made possible by God’s promise of forgiveness. Forgiveness amps up the self-criticism of repentance rather than making it unnecessary.
Series C, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
“Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:20. The joy of salvation is not outside subjugation but that the Lamb of God has effectively “taken away” the sin of the single individual whose name is “written in heaven.”
Series C, Third Sunday after Pentecost
Foxes and birds naturally have natural habitats. Jesus had no home because any earthly place would be too inadequate and impermanent to be called “home” for beings on the path of life leading to delights that are forever.
Series C, Second Sunday after Pentecost
We want a salvation that tweaks, not one that transforms. Conversion begins with restoration of the self, which sin always intends to destroy.
Series C, The Holy Trinity
Time and death are transformed because the Holy Trinity is love. If God was one person, love would be self-love. But God is Triune, which means that true love has always been about love for the other and so essentially sacrificial.
Series C, The Day of Pentecost
Pentecost fulfils and completes the promise of Shavuot by moving the external law into the depths of the heart. To be chosen is expressed in making what seems like hard choices unless they are the choices that God makes for his beloved.
Series C, The Ascension of Our Lord
Christ’s ascension completes the teleological path of descent/incarnation/death/resurrection which opened the way of our ascent.
Series C, Sixth Sunday of Easter
Do you want to be healed? Salvation s not for the healthy and whole but for those who know healing as an unrequited desire.
Series C, Fifth Sunday of Easter
Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would reveal unbearable truths. The unbearable truth to be revealed over time is that all suffering is akin to the travail of childbirth, that pain is not a sign of death but of life. This unbearably beautiful truth is that what we wish to be true, is the truth.
Series C, Fourth Sunday of Easter
There is no distance between Jesus’ words and works as Good Shepherd and God. God’s whole goodness is in His incarnate Good Shepherd.
Series C, Third Sunday of Easter
Christ’s kingdom does not change after His resurrection. Despite their failures, He is going to use the same people He began His ministry with to speak His peace and forgiveness.
Series C, Second Sunday of Easter
"Life in his name" is not any life, or the life we choose but the life sanctioned by Jesus’ incarnate life.
Series C, The Resurrection of Our Lord
Jesus’ resurrection means that everything has changed because mortality was swallowed up by immortality. From now on Christian life aims at increasing confidence in the new conditions of mortal existence by following Christ’s well-detailed path to and beyond cross.
Series C, Palm Sunday
The glory of Jesus’ suffering and death is the glory of “being lifted up from the earth” so that all people are drawn to Him. Those who desire the human glory that drives and forces others will not see the glory and beauty of the One who rules by drawing free people to freely follow Him.
Series C, Fifth Sunday in Lent
Salvation is analogous to restored fortunes. Restoration presumes loss of a previous condition that was not defined by death. Being mortal means our life is defined by loss. But in Christ we are not losers. On the contrary, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Series C, Fourth Sunday in Lent
Repentance gives us the liberty of the lost (prodigal) son to "come back to himself" and that is cause for joyful celebration rather than moral condemnation.
Series C, Third Sunday in Lent
In Lent we contemplate our mortality, what it means to be defined as mortal and what it means for mortals to have hope of life in Christ.
Series C, Second Sunday in Lent
Jesus’ goodness generated threats from Herod and Jesus dismissed Herod "the great" by calling him by a diminutive "fox". Of course, a fox can cause considerable chaos in the hen house, except, this time the hen was Jesus, there to protect his chicks, even when they refused his care. Nonetheless, Jesus continued his loving work of giving life to a life–starved world.
Series C, First Sunday in Lent
Not everything called salvation is salvation. True salvation is by the work of the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world and which is characterized as deprivation and temptation. A false salvation exploits deprivations to supply empty satisfactions.
Series C, The Transfiguration of Our Lord
The Transfiguration of Jesus gives us a glimpse of the New Creation when mankind in Christ will be brought face-to-face with the glory of God.
Series C, Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
God-like-ness is the alternative to lifeless self-absorption.
Series C, Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Jesus’ beatitudes help us see beyond the present moment to our future reality, that God’s judgement really is in our favour.
Series C, Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Humility is not a moral thing we decide to do or be; it is what happens when we recognize the fullness of our fallen reality and the greatness of God. God’s compelling and attractive nature, which draws us toward Him rather than drive us away, requires working through our natural, sinful inclination to distance ourselves from Him.
Series C, Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Jesus’ authority and power are signalled by miracles which point beyond visible manifestations to the fullness of life to come.
Series C, Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Do we resit God’s living Word actively changing who we are? True humility in the face of God’s Word leads to the response of worship.
Series C, Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Here at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus transports us to the end showing us that we can experience our future reality in the present moment. This does not necessarily change our present circumstances, but it does change us, making us tread a little more boldly toward the final hour.
The Baptism of Our Lord
You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. Luke 3:22b Christ identified Himself with sinners in his baptism. Sinners identified with Christ in their baptism become God’s beloved children with whom He is well-pleased.
The Epiphany of Our Lord
Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Matthew 2:2 Epiphany celebrates the promise of God making himself known to us; revealing himself to and through the church through the glorious weakness of preaching. The epiphany to the Magi is first a decisive act of revelation that casts light on what it means to be in the Church now a
The Holy Innocents
The Holy Innocents were martyrs in deed but not will: Their lives were taken for the sake of Jesus, but were not yet able to confess His name with their own minds and tongues. Jesus gave His life of His own to save the world from sin and death and He rose again to intercede for us.
Fourth Sunday in Advent
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. Luke 1:46–48 God’s mercy is powerful, but works not in the way the wannabe powerful act. God’s mercy seeks the humble, intending to edify and elevate him to God’s glory.
Third Sunday in Advent
Blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Luke 7:23 The road through Advent to Christmas is no walk in the park. Although it is repeated each year, it is never experienced the same way. Life’s journey carries us to different points, but no matter where we are, we must learn again that the Way of Christ is not a broad, smooth path, but rather a narrow, rocky trail. We need the Lord to teach us
Second Sunday in Advent
Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. Luke 3:8a The truth of salvation is expressed in the double confession which expresses truthful recognition of God’s wrath and His love for the unlovable. The desire to reach God and the recognition of God reaches us in Christ’s incarnation.
First Sunday in Advent
Right when we think the journey is going to end with the Last Sunday of the Church Year, the lectionary rolls us quite seamlessly into Advent – the season of preparation. It turns out the Lord is drawing near, “at the very gates,” not to bring things to an end, but to carry them forward into fullness. The church calendar’s seamless movement from the end to the beginning shows us that the eschatolo
Series B, Last Sunday of the Church Year
The last Sunday of the Church year remind us that the lectionary texts unfold the movement of the church calendar which repeatedly recalls the saturated meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This truth requires a special calendar to show us how time itself has been altered by the Incarnate Son of God so that now it measures our movement through – Not to. Through – our mortal end towards
Series B, Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
The Kingdom of God invades the kingdom of man first by proclamation because God would have free followers, having been drawn by the desire to live, rather than being the last resort of the alarmed and fearful.
Series B, Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost
God keeps faith forever. His kingdom is one of justice and generosity. To be a citizen of his kingdom is to put our trust in Him completely; and with that faith in Him, we trust that he will raise up those who are bowed down and sit us at his royal banquet table.
Series B, All Saints Day
The life of Jesus and the lives of His "saints" are the two witnesses to the truthfulness of the alternative version of reality transfiguring deprivation, deficit, wickedness, or weakness into the state of ultimate blessedness that is experienced in the soul/mind/heart where Jesus opens His mouth to teach and opens us up to the new version of reality.
Series B, Reformation Day
The hope of this fallen/falling world is temporary, but the beauty, truth and goodness of God’s salvation are eternal.
Series B, Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Jesus’ disciples were struck by His dismissing of wealth as a hindrance to desiring salvation. Then, He taught them the difference between gaining the whole world and losing the soul and "great exchange" – Christ swapping His righteousness for our un-right-ness.
Series B, Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
Everything turns on Jesus being the cause and consummation of the goodness we desire; i.e., quality-perfect; quantity-forever. Only if that is goodness are we free to see possessions as ancillary, ministerial, auxiliary, useful tools of knowing and doing the good.
Series B, Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
“Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” Mark 10:4. The regulatory aimed to weakened the hold of marriage by giving permits for divorce while Jesus defined marriage as our participation in God’s faithfulness that gave marriage the heft and oomph to battle our selfish, fat, insatiable egos.
Series B, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Not everything called peace is peace. Jesus’ alternative peace is salt-like— “Have salt among yourselves and live in peace.” Salt subtly draws out and combines foods’ various flavours without notice until, that is, the salt is missing.
Series B, Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Who is the greatest?" is an embarrassingly irrelevant question. Greatness is defined by Jesus turning the world right-side-up again.
Series B, Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Faith means seeing the physical by the truth of the metaphysical; the material by the non-material; the mortal by the light of the eternal.
Series B, Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Faith comes by hearing, and even hearing is restored by the special attraction of the Word of God.
Series B, Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
How is one made clean? By having the heart transformed, which happens by humbly hearing God’s promises, His Word of forgiveness, and engaging His commandments and precepts; and with that our souls are guarded, which is Jesus’ main concern.
Series B, Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The defeat of the fat, relentless ego is experienced when Christ’s presence works so that we desire to will and to do God’s good pleasure. When what we confess with our lips is what we believe, value and desire in our hearts.
Series B, Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
There will always be difficult and offensive things in the life of faith; but part of that life of faith is willingness to continue walking with Jesus and be led by him to see the truth in his difficult teachings.
Series B, Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Eternal life, like all life, depends on having the right kind of food and Jesus reminds us in in John 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Series B, Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Anyone serious about the faith knows that belief is some of the hardest, most strenuous work out there because it learns to see life in the midst of death. Jesus, is “the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33) He is the bread that was sacrificed on the altar of the cross and His deadly sacrifice gives life to the world.
Series B, Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Jesus intensified the fear of his disciples of dying in a storm by appearing to be the angel of death present to take their souls to hades. His purpose was to demonstrate to the disciples that the very real evil in the world and in their hearts requires a very real deliverance that can be trusted even when in the thick of fearful circumstances.
Series B, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Teaching is a sign of Christ’s compassion. He is not just here to protect and provide like a shepherd, He is here to teach and by teaching He leads people out of fear and disorder into his leisure and abundant feast in this wilderness.
Series B, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection leaves nothing unchanged. Fulness of life is in the ongoing realization of the happy hopefulness of this truth.
Series B, Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Can a sense of pride on the part of the hearer get in the way of hearing the preaching of repentance? Pride is unbelief, and prevents the miracles of faith from occurring.
Series B, Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Jesus’ healings define the meaning of the grace which redefines God’s relationship to sinners.
Series B, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Mark 4:39 The calming of the sea was a contest of the louder voice. It was not just that Jesus told the sea “Peace, be still!” It was “Silent! Be muzzled!” Language has its limits, we think, but that is only until God gets his hands on it.
Series B, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. Mark 4:26 When Jesus specifies the metaphor, close attention needs to be paid to points of comparison. The church is an agri-culture which distinguishes it from mechanical systems, financial systems, political powers, or pleasure calculus. Cultivation not management is the ruling metaphor. The natural history of seeds is the most
Series B, Third Sunday after Pentecost
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. Mark 3:24 The nature of God’s Kingdom is not that of a family dynasty connected by physical bloodlines, but a spiritual Kingdom united by the power of the Holy Spirit under the Lordship of Christ. The Kingdom of Heaven is made up of people liberated from the Kingdom of Satan by Christ who has bound the strong man and plundered his
Series B, Second Sunday after Pentecost
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Mark 2:27 Preaching on this passage has often staked the untrue claim that the Gospel "frees" a Christian from keeping the "Sabbath." And that deceptive claim gives the false consolation that Christians are free not to worship together. It is ironic that the freedom of the Gospel is a license to be free from the Gospel, which is enjoying God’s
Series B, The Holy Trinity
Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Isaiah 6:5 God is life, life, life, and Isaiah saw himself to be too much defined by death to imagine ever fitting into God’s presence, that is until God cauterized his festering lips, forgiving his offenses then returning Isaiah to par
Series B, The Ascension of Our Lord
Salvation is completely accomplished by Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. His Ascension unleashed the final stage of the apocalypse revealing the consequences of His Salvation by extending it to single individuals throughout all nations.
Series B, Sixth Sunday of Easter
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. (John 15:9) “Abide” means enjoying Christ’s perfection in loving as we have been loved. It is personal and participatory like remaining in a warm house whose warmth is shared.
Series B, Fifth Sunday of Easter
Jesus’ declaration that he is the True Vine connects to His first miracle at the wedding in Cana. It was not accidental that Jesus launched His mission to give immortality to mortals at a wedding and by changing water into wine as it harkens back to God’s gifts of fruit and fruitfulness at life’s creation.
Series B, Fourth Sunday of Easter
When Jesus says, “I AM the Good Shepherd,” He offers a unity grounded in sacrifice and knowledge that at the same time raises up the individual and brings that individual to share in the one mind of Christ.
Series B, Third Sunday of Easter
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” (Luke 24:36) This reading continues the theme of peace brought about by Christ’s Resurrection, but instead of being connected to forgiveness, peace relates to physical presence and eating. Jesus grants peace by being physically present. Holy Communion incorporates the communion of the physica
Series B, Second Sunday of Easter
“Peace be with you!” Peace is the confidence that through His cross and resurrection Jesus has restored to us the natural, wholesome condition of existence.
Series B, The Resurrection of Our Lord
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 167-8) We are seeing here the response of true worship. True worship, as a saturated experience, leaves us ecstatic. It complet
Series B, Sunday of the Passion
The mystery of Jesus’ Passion glory gives us the freedom to hate this life without hating life, the freedom to love this life by hating the destruction inflicted by sin, death, and the devil and to refuse to live as if life can be permanently killed. This freedom is granted only to those with the hope of Jesus’ Passion glory.
Series B, Fifth Sunday in Lent
Jesus manifests what true greatness is in His self-sacrifice. True greatness is not in lording it over anyone but in the knowledge and wisdom He so generously serves. More than that, in His offering himself as the ransom—the redemption price for those all those who are captive to sin. A price well beyond what we can imagine!
Series B, Fourth Sunday in Lent
God’s love given to those who love the darkness casts light on what it means for us to live in a post-truth world where trust is increasingly displaced by suspicion and loneliness.
Series B, Third Sunday in Lent
Jesus cleared out the Temple, essentially bringing the sacrificial economy to a halt, because God now dwells in the flesh and not in a temple made with hands, to make the once-for-all sacrifice sins.
Series B, Second Sunday in Lent
To confess Jesus as Christ is to have the same Words as He does, breathe the same Spirit as He does, and ultimately, do the same things as He does. There is a oneness with Christ and His body that comes out of the confession.
Series B, First Sunday in Lent
Jesus suffered temptation because he was the beloved Son who would demonstrate God’s love for the world by being the sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Series B, The Transfiguration of Our Lord
Jesus’ Transfiguration defines the final act of salvation as a movement beginning on the Mount of Transfiguration through the disfiguration of the cross, then finished by the Resurrection.
Series B, Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Jesus’ promised healing happens only when time ends. This means, in the meantime, we only have foretastes that do not fully satisfy, but rather deepen our longing for the fullness of His eternal kindness.
Series B, Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
The Evangelist Mark shows throughout his Gospel that Jesus moved individual souls inwardly by in-struction, while official authority depended on external compulsion. This difference changed the meaning of the word obedience from fearfully following external authority to following Jesus’ in-structuring of the soul that authorizes a way of life that is free from fear.
Series B, Third Sunday after the Epiphany
“The time is fulfilled.” Jesus responded to the bad news that John had been arrested by preaching the “Good News” about Him; and this is good news for bad times because, as Jesus said, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.”
Series B, Second Sunday after the Epiphany
“How do you know me?” The Incarnation of the Son of God meant that the King of the universe had taken on flesh and blood to personally know single individuals like Nathanael and us.
Series B, The Baptism of Our Lord
Jesus’ baptism demonstrated that he, God’s beloved Son, now in love for His fallen world, freely identified Himself with sinners and, in love, freely chose to be in the presence of his beloved ones, and finally freely gave His life for his beloved on the cross.
