“These Shining Lives,” by Melanie Marnich If you find yourself in the Southern Tier of upstate New York this weekend, wend your way to Binghamton’s Phelps Mansion and see your’s truly in another play. Southern Tier Actors Read (S.T.A.R.) is putting on a staged reading of “These Shining Lives” by Melanie Marnich. The play highlights […]
A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 6:24-34 — Consider the Birds
If I write just one children’s sermon on Matthew 6:24-34 it has to be able cover a few different occasions. In Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary that text is called “Proper 3 (8)” meaning it comes up, in two different seasons. It can be on the Eighth Sunday after Epiphany, or shortly after […]
A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 10:24-39
Every biblical text presents its own challenges, but writing a children’s sermon on Matthew 10:24-39 brings some of the ones I find hardest. But that’s the Gospel for lectionary Year A, “Proper 7(12)”. There’s no story of things that Jesus did. Nothing is included to give context for Jesus’ teachings. And there are no parables, so […]
A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 28:16-20 — The Great Commission
Prelude Here’s a children’s sermon on Matthew 28:16-20. It’s a massively important text — “The Great Commission,” no less. But as I write, it is not the Lectionary Gospel for this coming Sunday. I already posted a children’s sermon for this Sunday’s Gospel, and you can find it here (with a link to the related […]
A Children’s Sermon on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 — Proper 5(10)
Marinus van Reymerswaele, The Calling of Matthew (public domain) Writing a children’s sermon on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, the text for “Proper 5(10),” which is the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost this year, requires one to make choices. There are really four separate stories here: Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector. Jesus eats with “sinners.” Jesus heals […]