Lectionary Reflections | Richard's Food for Thought

September 16, 2026 Lectionary Reflections

The Older Brother's Porch: A Reflection on Luke 15:25–32

The older brother stays outside, and I keep wondering if I've ever really gone back in.

She had spent everything and was only getting worse. Then she reached through a crowd toward something she couldn't quite name.

Isaiah offers an odd little image — a rock casting shade in a weary land. I keep coming back to it.

Thirty-eight years of waiting, and the first question Jesus asks is whether he wants to be healed.

Moses turns aside to look at a bush that will not stop burning — and I wonder how often I walk past my own.

Elijah collapses under a broom tree and asks to die. What God does next has stayed with me for years.

The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 are among the most familiar verses in the New Testament. They are also, on close reading, among the strangest.

Advent is, structurally, a season about waiting. Which makes it countercultural in the best possible way.

The book of Ruth is often read as a love story. I keep returning to it as a story about the kind of loyalty that costs something.

The parable of the prodigal son is usually told as a story about the younger son. I keep returning to the father.