Author Archives: NextSunday Reflections

Luke 13:34-35 I come from a family that likes to hug. When our second child was born, our first son toddled up to my wife as she held the new baby. He looked at her and said, “Two babies, Momma. Two babies.” He wanted to be held, like many of us who have a deep […]

Luke 13:31-33 Undaunted. We should probably associate this powerful word with Jesus more often. Consider all of the obstacles he faces: disciples who don’t understand him and sometimes try to hinder his work; opponents who try to trap him with every question they ask; political forces that want to squelch his movement that sets people […]

Luke 13:14-17 The healing of the bent woman is a beautiful story of restoration. But just as the woman, who now stands up straight, begins to praise God, someone who thinks he’s honoring God dismisses her genuine worship. If we’re honest, this synagogue leader is not so different from us. He lives by religious rules […]

Luke 13:10-13 Every time I hear this story I think of Peggy. She reenacted this passage for our church one Sunday. I recall her slowly walking into the sanctuary, bent forward as she told us about her encounter with Jesus. Then, with a smile, she straightened to her full height as she praised God for […]

Luke 13:6-9 Expectations matter. When ours are met or exceeded, that uplifts us. When something we expect fails to measure up, we deflate. I once expected a big toy truck for Christmas. When I ran to find it under the tree, and it wasn’t there, I felt forgotten. Until I was handed a red-ink letter […]

Luke 13:1-5 Is Jesus having a stressful day? His words are not what we normally expect from our loving friend. He speaks of repentance and judgment, old words that were much more common in another era of church life. Maybe we need to hear hard truths spoken with fire.  Of course, what’s up with the […]

Psalm 15 The writer of Psalm 15 asks God two questions: “O LORD, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?” (v. 1). These questions resemble the two that the lawyer asks in Luke 10, beginning with “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 25). The lawyer, versed […]

Luke 10:38-42 Kathleen Norris said, “It is in the realm of the daily and the mundane that we must find our way to God.” Brother Lawrence, a lay brother in a French monastery, would agree with her. Like every other monk who entered there, Lawrence committed himself to seven periods of prayer every day. But […]

Luke 10:35-37 “I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me,” Martin Luther King Jr. preached in a sermon on Luke 10 during a national sanitation workers strike. “It’s possible they were afraid . . . and so the first question that the priest and the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help […]

Luke 10:33-34  As I left the subway station in Prague, I started looking at street signs and tripped on the cobblestone pavement. The next thing I knew, I was on my knees; my mouth and nose were throbbing, and my lip bled profusely. I was more than physically hurt. I felt frustrated with myself for […]