Epiphany 3 | Ordinary Time 3 - A
Rachel Matthews, 48, a community manager for an Internet start-up company, started doing it because she wanted to be able to travel between Austin, Texas, and France. Jennifer Stickels, a 26-year-old headhunter, started doing it because she lost her childcare provider and was unable to find a good daycare with an opening.
What are we talking about? Telecommuting. Working at least part of the week from home, using computers and telephones and fax machines. Instead of a commute, dull staff meetings, and an eat-on-the-run lunch break, telecommuting can mean bunny slippers, unchained creativity, and your favorite CD -- all because home base is now your work base.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
What are we talking about? Telecommuting. Working at least part of the week from home, using computers and telephones and fax machines. Instead of a commute, dull staff meetings, and an eat-on-the-run lunch break, telecommuting can mean bunny slippers, unchained creativity, and your favorite CD -- all because home base is now your work base.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
The front page of any newspaper in the land can bring despair to its readers. Far more than the scandal sheets, legitimate newspapers and nightly telecasts bombard us with the nasty stuff of life. Countries vie against each other. Sections of countries or former countries like Yugoslavia take special pleasure, it seems, in committing atrocities against their neighbors. Race crimes and racial injustices in our own country continue to shock those of us who thought more progress had been made over the last four decades. Domestic violence is the polite name we give for the rage which goes on behind a family's closed doors. In short, people do not get along with others at any level of society.
Our lessons for the day force us to look beyond the gloom of disintegration to the...
Our lessons for the day force us to look beyond the gloom of disintegration to the...
Less often than we may think about it, we should think about the huge leap we ask listeners to make when we read a passage from the prophets. The typical listener is a regular at worship, presumably a reader of the Bible, someone who is able to live mentally, at least with one part of the mind, in the ancient Near and Middle East. Our expectation of such listeners is often something akin to quick, locate Naphtali and Zebulun on the map. Now name the other ten tribes of Israel. Unless one is an atlas maker, such names and places are alien, remote. Yet they frame this task naturally, as if this is where we are to live.
The reason for bringing this up is twofold: if we remember how distant is the time and place of Isaiah, we are more likely than not to take our hearers...
David Coffin
An older woman is homebound because of a bad hip. She sits in her rocking chair, gazing out the window at the various signs of life in her neighborhood. Parents and children are riding their bikes together. The neighbor is working on his garden. Another woman is climbing up a tree to fix a birdhouse. This older woman sits and ponders whether getting a hip replacement is worth the stress of facing surgery, therapy, medications, and visits to the doctor. She prays to God for guidance.
Frank Ramirez
In the season of Epiphany, Jesus is revealed. It’s more than just a question of seeing Jesus. We are meant to perceive who Jesus is! These three texts open three different doors onto the same Christ. In Isaiah’s darkness we see the light of hope. In Corinth, where the Christian churches are anything but Christ-like, Paul shines a bright light to illuminate error. And Matthew uses the light of Isaiah’s scripture to show that despite the arrest of John his message continues, while Jesus expands it to include healing and hope.
Isaiah 9:1-4
Isaiah 9:1-4
Mark Ellingsen
The texts for the Third Sunday After Epiphany are that God goes before us.
Isaiah 9:1-4
Isaiah 9:1-4
Mark Ellingsen
This is a Sunday for reminders that Jesus is our only way out.
Isaiah 9:1-4
Isaiah 9:1-4
David Kalas
Schuyler Rhodes
I was in the home of a church member the other day where I saw a marvelous family portrait. The picture had been taken on the occasion of a fiftieth wedding anniversary, and the entire family had gathered for the occasion. The celebrating husband and wife were seated in the center of the picture, flanked by their adult children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. It was a magnificent full-color illustration of God's design.
From fifty years earlier, of course, there was a smaller frame featuring a black-and-white photo of a twenty-something couple on their wedding day. They were young, happy, and hopeful. Now, these decades later, the larger, color portrait bore witness to some of what their life and love together had produced.
From fifty years earlier, of course, there was a smaller frame featuring a black-and-white photo of a twenty-something couple on their wedding day. They were young, happy, and hopeful. Now, these decades later, the larger, color portrait bore witness to some of what their life and love together had produced.
Wayne Brouwer
"Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous!" said Winston Churchill.
"In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times."
In one of his essays, Albert Camus describes a powerful scene. John Huss, the great Czech reformer of the church, is on trial. His accusers twist all his ideas out of shape. They refuse to give him a hearing. They maneuver the political machine against him and incite popular passion to a lynch-mob frenzy. Finally, Huss is condemned to be burned at the stake. As the flames surround him, people who couldn't possibly have read his writings and who have no interest in either his perspectives or those of the governing authorities, line up to assist in the murder. "When they were burning John Huss," writes Camus, "a...
In one of his essays, Albert Camus describes a powerful scene. John Huss, the great Czech reformer of the church, is on trial. His accusers twist all his ideas out of shape. They refuse to give him a hearing. They maneuver the political machine against him and incite popular passion to a lynch-mob frenzy. Finally, Huss is condemned to be burned at the stake. As the flames surround him, people who couldn't possibly have read his writings and who have no interest in either his perspectives or those of the governing authorities, line up to assist in the murder. "When they were burning John Huss," writes Camus, "a...
Wayne Brouwer
In 1882 George MacDonald wrote a fascinating story that powerfully illumines the thought behind today's lectionary passages. MacDonald called his tale "The Day Boy and the Night Girl: the Romance of Photogen and Nycteris" (it is available online at http://www.ccel.org/m/macdonald/daynight/daynight.html). In MacDonald's fable a witch steals a newborn girl and raises her in the total darkness of a cave. The witch experiences both light and darkness, but not the girl. She is completely immersed in the black world. Even as she grows, the witch will only allow her to step outside during the nighttime hours. Long before dawn's graying blush, Nycteris would be back inside her dark cave home. Although she may have been meant for...
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For each week, Emphasis writers delve into the heart of the lectionary readings, providing you with several fresh, solid ideas -- based squarely on the lectionary texts -- for creating sermons that speak powerfully to your audience. They look for overall themes that hold the readings together. Then, they zero in on the themes and the specific scripture links, suggesting directions for the sermon and worship service. Since a single idea each week may not provide what you are looking for at that particular time, writers suggest several, giving you the opportunity to select the one that matches your specific needs.
