Category: Mario Ramos

Mark 3:20-35

This text is used as one of the texts for the Lectionary Year B on June 7, 2015.

This section of Scripture has two stories with one theme: one’s relationship with Jesus Christ.  There are those who are in the inside and those on the outside, those that are intimately related to him and those who are not.  This passage has two parallel stories.  The passage is bracketed with Jesus’ family looking for him and ends with his statement regarding the identity of his family.  Within the bookends is the dialogue with the teachers of the law.  Both the scribes and his family members find themselves outside and “whoever does God’s will” (v. 35) is inside.

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John 3:1-17

This text is used as one of the texts for the Lectionary Year B on May 31, 2015.

This text is often preached on Trinity Sunday.  The text illustrates the different and complementary roles of the Trinity.  The Trinity is a community of love named perichoresis.  John of Damascus (c.675-c.750) was not the first to describe the relationship of the Trinity as perichoresis.  Yet, he was credited with bringing this concept to the theological forefront. The word perichoresis literally means “circle” (peri) “dance” (choros).  This is the round/circle folkdance that is performed in many cultures.  Perichoresis communicates the dynamic relationship enjoyed by the community of the Godhead.  It resonates with joy, fun, celebration, intimacy, equality, unity and yet distinction, and love.

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John 16:4b-15

This text is used as one of the texts for the Lectionary Year B on May 24, 2015.

Suffering for one’s faith oftentimes challenges one’s commitment to one’s beliefs and values.  Though we American Christians do not suffer the privations of religious liberty and persecution of the early Church or of our contemporaries in anti-Christian countries, we are engaged in the same spiritual, cosmic war.  Many of us feel increasingly out of place in a society that is becoming less Christian.  We feel outnumbered, our values and morals abandoned as the Church has an increasingly diminished role in the public forum.  The Western Church feels defeated, despairing, and grieving the loss of its former glory.  Continue reading →

John 17:6-19

This text is used as one of the texts for the Lectionary Year B on May 17, 2015.

Jesus’ prayer of the Upper Room is his longest and the most sublime.  One senses the eternal realm Jesus has entered in this prayer as if he has one foot on earth and another in heaven.  He says in verse 11, “I am no longer in the world” (NASB).  And yet, he is still in the world (verse 13, NIV).

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