All Past Reflections

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost"Simple Wisdom"Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Ephesians 5:15-20, NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (John 6:51-58, NRSVUE) Our family recently converged in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park for vacation. It may seem to you like a strange...

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost"Members of One Another"Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Ephesians 4:25-5:2/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (John 6:35, 41-51/NRSVUE) I won’t be so presumptuous as to speak for you, but all of Jesus’s talk about bread lately has made me really...

Tenth Sunday after PentecostRev. Brent Gundlah"Bread" First Reading (Ephesians 4:1-16/Common English Bible)Gospel Reading (John 6:1-21/NRSVUE) Just a few weeks ago, on a hot and humid Tuesday night in Arlington, Texas, Major League Baseball held its annual Midsummer...

Ninth Sunday after PentecostRev. Brent Gundlah"Going About Our Business" First Reading (Jeremiah 23:1-6 / NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 / NRSVUE) When we last checked-in with the apostles a couple of weeks ago, Jesus had just decided to “send them out by...

Eighth Sunday after PentecostRev. Brent Gundlah"Choices" First Reading (Amos 7:7-15, NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (John 6:1-21, NRSVUE) I don’t know if you’ve noticed but pretty much every Sunday, right after I’ve finished reading the gospel passage, I say those same five...

Seventh Sunday after PentecostRev. Brent Gundlah"Going Home" First Reading (Ezekiel 2:1-5/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 6:1-13/NRSVUE) Jesus delivers. And by “delivers,” I don’t mean that Jesus frees anyone from captivity or constraint (like God did for the Israelites...

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost"Why Are You Afraid?"Rev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Job 38:1-11, NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 4:35-41, NRSVUE) “Why were you afraid?” Jesus asks his disciples near the end of today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel. And, at least at some...

Fourth Sunday after PentecostThe Power of a ParableRev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Ezekiel 17:22-24, NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 4:26-34, NRSVUE) Over the past month or so we’ve been working on a little project at home, which has been… fun. Because water is, as we...

Third Sunday after PentecostHide and SeekRev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (Genesis 3:8-15, NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 3:20-25, NRSVUE) The neighborhood in which I spent my elementary school years was a pretty awesome place (even if I didn’t appreciate it at the...

Second Sunday after PentecostPride SundayRev. Brent Gundlah First Reading (2 Corinthians 4:5-12/NRSVUE)Gospel Reading (Mark 2:23-3:6/NRSVUE) At the last church I served, there was a box sitting on a table in the Sunday School classroom with a sign on it that said:...