Acts 4:5-12 What It’s About: This is about Peter confessing his faith in front of powerful people. What It’s Really About: This is another one of those speeches in Acts–which are exactly like those speeches you make up in your head after you have a conversation, in which you say (to nobody) what you should have said in the moment. What It’s Not About: It’s not about that base. This is about the cornerstone! That’s an architecture joke. And a pop culture... Read more

Acts 3:12-19 What It’s About: Peter giving a speech about the resurrection. What It’s Really About: The speeches in Acts are set-pieces. They are chances for the author to do long exposition on the meaning of ideas and events. Think of the famous “walk and talk” from shows like The West Wing; these speeches are opportunities for characters to explain things clearly. This one is about the resurrection, which is why it comes here in the Easter season. What It’s Not About: It’s... Read more

  Acts 4:32-35 What It’s About: It’s a hippie commune! What It’s Really About: Historians and bible scholars will always debate how likely it was that the community was really this happy and egalitarian and communalistic. But it really doesn’t matter; this is how the author of Acts wanted his readers to understand the community. The author of Acts understood that early community of Jesus-followers as idyllic, and this is how he chose to portray that. Christianity in nearly every age has... Read more

  Acts 10:34-43 What It’s About: Gentiles! This is about how Peter’s accumulated experiences have led to this point, where he now understands God’s mission as extending to all people. What It’s Really About: It’s hard to understand this passage without reading it in the context of the first part of chapter 10, which is Peter’s vision of the sheet coming down from heaven. There is an elaborate and involved back-story here, involving Peter and Paul (and who knows who else) and... Read more

This week’s lectionary is a little bit different. This week, in contrast to most other weeks, there is the option to go in two pretty different directions. You can choose to observe Palm Sunday, which is a fairly triumphant day full of procession, Hosannas, and glory—even if it ends in solemn anticipation of Jesus’ suffering that is to come. Alternatively, you can choose to observe Passion Sunday, which moves the story of Jesus’ death right up to the present. Here,... Read more

Jeremiah 31:31-34 What It’s About: A new covenant between God and Israel and Judah. What It’s Really About: This is really about restoration. In the prophets, there is this sense of intense loss: current loss, or loss that has happened already, or loss that is yet to come. The prophets measure from an ideal–an apogee of righteousness and faithfulness that seems to have passed into history. But the prophets are also about looking forward to the time when that loss will be... Read more

The lectionary giveth and the lectionary taketh away. Every minister I know (at least the ones who follow the lectionary) has weeks when the lectionary isn’t as compelling as it is at other times. In my experience, this is different for different ministers. What one person finds boring or uninspiring, others find thrilling. That is to say, different people react differently to different texts. This week’s texts don’t do much for me. That’s probably a failure on my part as... Read more