Rama Ramanathan

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 3:1-6. The English Standard Version supplies the heading “John the Baptist Prepares the Way” to verses 1-22. No versions treat verses 1-6 as a separate unit. But there is value in treating them separately, because here Luke names – and shames – the most powerful people […]

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 21:25-36. The English Standard Version[1] divides the passage into three portions. It supplies them with the headings: “The Coming of the Son of Man,” The Lesson of the Fig Tree,” and “Watch Yourselves.” Why did Luke compile these accounts? Why did he place them at this

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder John 18:33-38. The English Standard Version supplies the passage with the heading “My Kingdom Is Not of This World.” The passage is a portion of John’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the Roman governor, Pilate. The encounter happened after Caiaphas, the high priest, pronounced the sentence of

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Mark 13:1-13. The English Standard Version presents the reading as two passages. It supplies the headings “Jesus Foretells Destruction of the Temple,” (verses 1-2) and “Signs of the Close of the Age” (verses 3-13). We must read the passages with an interpretive tool which Jesus supplied earlier.

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Mark 12:38-44. The English Standard Version supplies the text with the headings “Beware of the Scribes” and “The Widow’s Offering.” If you’ve read or heard the passages before, you’ll remember them. Because both passages draw emotional responses from us. The first passage is offensive to scribes. The

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Mark 10:35-45. In March, I discussed this passage under the title A Good Leader Spends Himself. Then, I focused on servant leadership. Now, I’ll focus on suffering. Recently I heard the Canadian historian Dr Henry Abramson say that at the end of the last century, a Japanese

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to consider Mark 10:17-31. The English Standard Version supplies the passage with the title “The Rich Young Man.” We frequently use two measures of wealth. First is annual income. Second is capital, or value of properties and cash. Magazines like Forbes publish lists of wealthiest people. The wealthy are

Can you define “transgender”?[1] If you think you can, stop reading this. Take out your pen or voice note recorder. Record what you think transgender means. Then, continue reading. I’ll assume that you’ve heard the word transgender before, that you know it has something to do with sex, and that you’re aware there’s controversy over

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Mark 9:30-37. The English Standard Version divides the passage into two portions. To the first, it supplies the heading, “Jesus Again Foretells Death, Resurrection’” and to the second, the heading, “Who Is the Greatest?” Mark places the narratives after his account of the transfiguration of Jesus on

For the fifth and final week in a row, the lectionary invites us to ponder a passage from chapter 6 of the gospel of John. Today’s reading is John 6:56-69. The English Standard Version supplies it the title “The Words of Eternal Life.”[1] What do the words “eternal life” mean? For the majority of people,