by Janice MacLean | Sep 23, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
DON’T YOU SEE THE PRETTY CLOUDS by Hugh Farquhar Eighteenth after Pentecost: Mark 9:38-50. One day, Jesus’ disciple, John, was in a flap! Bothered and agitated, he came to Jesus to vent his concern. “Teacher,” he said, “we saw someone helping people in your name; but...
by Janice MacLean | Sep 17, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
WISDOM IS AS WISDOM DOES by Hugh Farquhar Seventeenth after Pentecost: James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a. In this section of his letter, James distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom: “earthly, phony, wisdom” and “loving, authentic wisdom.” Earthly wisdom, in his thinking, is...
by Janice MacLean | Sep 8, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
REVEALING OUR INNER LANDSCAPE By Hugh Farquhar Sixteenth after Pentecost: James 3:1-12. The Time with Children can be a time when we ministers really earn our keep. You never know what they’re going to say, and parents hold their breath, praying that some family...
by Janice MacLean | Sep 2, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
OPEN THE CIRCLE Year B, Fifteenth after Pentecost: James 2:1-10 By Hugh Farquhar When I was responsible for a time with children at Sunday worship, I sometimes taught them a song called “Open the Circle” by Jack Miffleton. (It’s like a no fail fudge recipe; it always...
by Janice MacLean | Jun 23, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
ABOUT INTERRUPTIONS by Hugh Farquhar The Gospel Reading from the Lectionary next Sunday is Mark 5:21-43. I own a book of cartoons that poke fun at ministers. One of my favourites shows a minister at work in his study at home. His four-year-old son is knocking...
![[1 John] Love. Lover. Loving](https://prayerbench.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/God-is-love--940x675.jpg)
by Janice MacLean | Jun 22, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“… God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” – 1 John 4:16 The youngest of church groups, the Messengers, had it for their motto: God is love. You see it on gifts for babies sometimes, God is love. And it...
by Janice MacLean | Jun 18, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
STORMY WEATHER by Hugh Farquhar The Gospel Reading in the Lectionary for next Sunday is Mark 4:35-41. This Gospel Reading is a storm story. Mark says that it was “a great wind storm.” “The waves beat into the boat so that it was already being swamped.” It pitched and...
![[2 Peter] Earnestly Desiring the End](https://prayerbench.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Untitled-design-1080x675.jpg)
by Janice MacLean | Jun 13, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
Earnestly Desiring the End Janice MacLean, “Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens...
by Janice MacLean | Jun 11, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
NOT AS MORTALS SEE By Hugh Farquhar The first Reading from the Lectionary next Sunday is 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13. At this stage in the history of the nation of Israel, the time had come to choose a new king. Samuel, the prophet, was led by God to the house of Jesse and...
![[1 Peter] The Harrowing of Hell](https://prayerbench.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/L81-Kary3-medium.jpg)
by Janice MacLean | Jun 4, 2021 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.” – 1 Peter 3:19 This intriguing verse may be a reference to the day Jesus “descended into hell” (as in the...
