Narrative Lectionary
The Hard Good Work
We’ll be getting our annual “Abraham” story this week. He, of course, is ‘Father Abraham”, the patriarch of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths, so he figures massively into the story. This week we’ll look at his original call. Why does God choose Abram (later Abraham)? How do we think his wife Sarai (later “Sarah) felt about it initially? Why does Abram say yes? What is the nature of this call, and what does it have to say for us…
The Full Spectrum
“Rally Sunday is upon us! I hope you can join us this Sunday as we kick off a new season at PPUMC. We will begin with worship as usual and a new season navigating the Narrative Lectionary.” -Pastor Paul Baudhuin
It’s All One
As this Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, we will be moving backwards in the narrative to Acts 2, which begins “When the day of Pentecost had come…” That is my continual reminder that what we know as Pentecost is not what the disciples in the story knew as Pentecost. It was an already existing holiday celebrating the first fruit of the harvest and the receiving of the Torah, called Shavuot, and “Pentecost” is merely the Greek form of the Hebrew “Shavuot”.…
The Power to Empower
We are almost at the end of this season in the Narrative Lectionary. Just two Sundays left! This Sunday we will look into Philippians 2 and the Apostle Paul’s famous “Christ Hymn”. It’s a beautiful peace of poetry, and has massive implications on the world we live in today to the degree that I will also be “assigning” some homework! What!?!? Then next week is Pentecost Sunday and we can call this season a wrap. After Pentecost, I’m excited to…
We Are a Resurrection People
This week in worship we are in the first of two weeks in what one scholar describes as The Apostle Paul’s “happiest letter”, his letter to the Philippians. As some of you know, I’m not a huge fan of Paul’s letters, due to my own spiritual baggage. So while I resist him, it’s good that the lectionary makes me deal with him, if only for two weeks! Also, the discussions in our weekly Bible Study (Wednesdays at 4:30 in my…
The Unknown God
This Sunday in worship, we hit one of my all time favorite passages. There’s a lot about the Apostle Paul with which I struggle, but I really like Paul in this story. I’m looking forward to diving into his philosophical conversation with folks in the little town of Athens. -Pastor Paul
Don’t Stop Singing.
Y’all, I am SO excited about this Sunday. We have a big, somewhat complicated, but powerful story from the Book of Acts, and we’re gonna shake things up a little. -Pastor Paul
Better Caul Saul
This week we turn the page to the book Acts, which is a collection of stories about the Disciples after Jesus has ascended and sent to the Holy Spirit on them in a new fresh way. That movement of the Spirit starts in Acts 2, on the Day of Pentecost (the Jewish holiday Shavuot), which isn’t for another few weeks. So this week we skip over that story and we move into the beginnings of the ministry of the Apostle…
Unleashed
This week we wrap up the Gospel of John with a passage that has two significant stories: One is essentially John’s Pentecost story, and the other is Thomas and his need to see and touch the resurrected Christ before he can believe (personally, I think he gets a bad rap around this). -Pastor Paul
