Tuesday Lectionary Leanings--Tale of Two Sermons Edition

Good Morning (or evening, or afternoon depending on where and when you are reading this), and welcome to the week where we prepare for the 3rd Sunday After Epiphany Year C (for RCL followers anyway).  And as it happens this Tuesday lands us in the middle of the Week Of Prayer for Christian Unity.  It seems appropriate in an widely ecumenical group such as this that we hold that occasion up in prayer (prayer source --excerpted from II Praise and Thanksgiving)....

All around the world...

We praise you dear God for creating us in all our diversity.
For the gift of our many cultures, languages, diverse expressions of belief, customs, traditions, and ethnicities we thank you!
We thank you for the many church traditions which have kept our communities strong and active even in places where they are a minority.
Teach us to celebrate our different identities and traditions, so as to forge bonds of friendship and fellowship leading us to greater unity.

We praise you Holy Spirit for the gift of mutual interdependence and solidarity that has been our heritage as peoples and churches.
Teach us to treasure the bonds of unity we enjoy as we beseech your continuing presence with us.
Inspire us on our journey towards full visible unity among us, and with all those peoples and movements that engage in the struggles for life.

This week the RCL readings offer us a choice between a really long sermon in Nehemiah or a really short sermon in Luke.  Mind you given the reaction Jesus gets to his sermon maybe it is just as well it is short--but more on that next week.

It strikes me that one could tell that story from Nehemiah any time people complain about the sermon being too long.  And after that long sermon the people weep for joy!  Should we maybe promise to preach till the people weep????  More seriously, coupled with the Psalm reading this passage really makes us think about our feelings toward Scripture.

Then in our other sermon Jesus gives one simple sentence.  Mind you that simple sentence coupled with a powerful passage of scripture makes a pretty potent (and somewhat terrifying) job description.  Then again at least this job description does not contain that pesky line "Other duties as required".  That line opens too many doors....

Nepotism at the highest levels?

Many Members but One Body

Or we could avoid preaching about preaching altogether and go with Paul.  Paul who continues to wax eloquent about welcoming all into the family (or body in this case) of God.  But maybe we should not ask which part of the body (literal or metaphorical) we would want to amputate...

Then again there is the Narrative Lectionary, which takes on Luke 6  and conflict with the Pharisees this week.

Wherever worship planning is tempting you to go this week, whatever wonderings/questions you have popping into your heads, any wonderful Children's Time ideas, or maybe just space to vent about church life--the comments are waiting.

PS: and of course best wishes (and maybe a little envy) go to those of our circle who are about to head off on a big boat for the Big Event (version 6.0) this weekend.