The kingdom is both desperately serious and delightfully accessible in Mark 9 video discussion

The Sunday lectionary gospel reading for Trinity 18 in this Year B is Mark 9.38–50. It is a rather unusual reading; it completes the collection of sayings that we began last week, and there is some continuity across the two passages; and it does belong (as we noted last week) to a section of teachings … Continue Reading

What does the gospel say to family life today?

In March 2021, the Archbishops commissioned a project to look at issues around family and households; this was the third of four Commissioners arising from Justin Welby’s 2018 book Reimagining Britain (which I reviewed here), the previous ones covering housing and care respectively, alongside the ongoing commission on racial justice. Before I read the report myself, I … Continue Reading

Jesus is the good shepherd in John 10

The lectionary gospel readers for the Fourth Sunday of Easter take the three parts of John 10 in turn; being in Year A, we are reading the first ten verses. But this is a good example of where our modern chapter divisions (first created by Stephen Langton, the 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury who helped to … Continue Reading