Epiphany 6A (February 13, 2011)

[Eric Frey]

Deuteronomy 30.15-20
Psalm 119.1-8
1 Corinthians 3.1-9
Matthew 5.21-37

As I continue through the Sermon on the Mount, there seem to be a couple options with the Matthew text. The first option is to examine the commonality between all the "You have heard... but I say..." passages. Each moves beyond the action to the intent. Each moves us from the outward to the inward. This could be developed in any number of ways I think.

The second option, and the one I will probably be doing because of some ongoing issues in our church is to look specifically at one of the paragraphs. We are going to be looking specifically at the opening paragraph (vv 21-26). We are a church that celebrates communion weekly and so the idea of coming to bring a sacrifice is especially apparent as the people come to receive the sacrament. So the call for reconciliation and unity in worship hits us right where it hurts. Our liturgy moves from sermon to creed to prayers of the people to offering to communion. This week instead of doing the typical prayers of the people we are going to do a time of reconciliation. It is one of those things I am not particularly looking forward to, but that is vitally necessary.

With all the talk of marital ethics flying around in our world, I wonder how we deal with the teaching in vv 27-32. This is an uncomfortable passage even to read to our people, let alone to address publicly. I am not wanting this to become a discussion of the propriety of divorce and re-marriage outside of a textual discussion, but how do we, in todays world, deal with this particular text?

[Kazimiera Fraley]

I will be on and off lectionary til Easter to more wholistically go through Romans. The lectionary does a great job of covering most of it but I will be supplementing on the weeks it moves away from Romans and then rearranging when it goes out of order (why does it do that?) - this week I am will be in Romans 1.

[Jon Twitchell]

Kaza,

A predecessor of mine (and a common friend) did a series on Romans back in 2002. It's still available at http://capenazarene.org/sermons/default.asp toward the bottom of the page. You might enjoy reading through his take on the material.

[Ryan Scott]

For what it's worth, I think this is 5A, not 6A.

[Jon Twitchell]

For what it's worth, I think this is 5A, not 6A.

Well... the texts listed in the OP are for 6A, but the 2011 date for 6A is the 13th (not the 6th).

Looks like Eric also knew this and put a note in his OP for me to modify it... just didn't see it until now.

For future reference, anyone can PM me, and I'll try to take care of things like this.