RCL Reflection, 11th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 13, Aug. 5, 2018
For what do you really hunger? What would slake your soul’s incredible thirst and longing? Can you name it? Will you claim it? Can you at least acknowledge that gnawing hole at the center of your being that longs to be filled with God? (Photo: Lance Fisher, Creative Commons)
Building Up the Body
Narrative Lectionary Reflection for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year Three, July 30, 2017
To plant a garden is to invest in the future of one’s well-being and bountiful table. Such work requires love, attention, care, and commitment.“Growing” spiritually gifted disciples involves similar effort and process. One doesn’t baptize the person and then only attend to cultivating the disciple a couple of times a year or even an hour on Sundays. It takes the same kind of consistent effort and commitment to grow disciples and strengthen their faith as it does to take a plant from seedling to abundant harvest. Discipleship is not a once-a-week activity but rather a life-long season of living into one’s identity as a child of God.
Cultivating Spiritual Growth
Lectionary Reflection for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 5, 2012
How’s the work of cultivating disciples going in your community of faith? Paul has some good words for spiritual gardeners in this week’s epistle lesson, and the gospel reminds us the master gardener’s mentoring that sustains us. (Photo by hans s used under Creative Commons License. Thanks!)