Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: May 14, 17, and 24

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Written By Rev. Emmy Kegler

​​Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.

May 14, 2026 – Feast of the Ascension of the Lord

Gospel: Luke 24:44-43

Rev. Dr. Charlene Rachuy Cox, “Ascension Ponderings”

The Word –

enfleshed in the earthly stuff

of blood and bones,

Risen –

still wounded and scarred –

that same, yet made-new-yet-same body

is 

who and what that ascends.

The stuff of earth becomes

a part of not just heaven,

but of the Divine. 

It is the Ascension,

therefore,

not the Resurrection,

that completes

the Incarnation.


May 17, 2026 – Seventh Sunday of Easter

First Reading: Acts 1:6-14

Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “Acts 1:1-11 in Uvalde”

There is a difference between bearing witness and looking on to a scene as an onlooker. There is a difference between the kind of witness that enters the pain of a hurting world and a spectator who gawks from a distance.

May 24, 2026 – Pentecost

Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “Difference is a Gift”

Some have forwarded that Pentecost reverses the punishment God meted out at Babel. Finally, we can understand one another because the Spirit enables all to understand one language.

But to me, this is a significant misreading of Babel. Is it really a punishment from God that we are all different, that we speak different languages and live in different cultures? That is, is difference a problem in need of a solution? I certainly don't think so, and the vibrancy of the world's cultures is evidence against the misreading of Babel.

Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Biodiversity Contra Babel”

…we may entertain the thought that it is exactly the work of the Spirit, the work of the creator God, to provide and insist upon biodiversity and the preservation and protection of species. Just as Babel sought to reduce language to a single one that exercised control, so the industrial food project—coupled with undisciplined consumer yearning—seeks to reduce species in the interest of speed, quantity, and profit. But the Spirit will have it otherwise, because the creator God is insistent upon the teeming myriad of species that refuses our mindless, undisciplined reductionism

Rev. Emmy Kegler

Emmy Kegler is a queer Christian mom, author, pastor, and speaker called to ministry at the margins of the church.

Emmy has a Master’s in Divinity from Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minn., and is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. She was raised in the Episcopal Church and spent some time in evangelical and non-denominational traditions before finding her home in the ELCA. For six years she served as the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Northeast Minneapolis, a small servant-hearted neighborhood congregation focused on feeding the hungry and community outreach, where she co-founded the Queer Grace Community, a group of LGBTQIA+ Christians in the Twin Cities meeting for worship, Bible study, and fellowship.

Emmy’s first book, One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins, tells her story as a queer Christian called to ordained ministry and how it formed her relationship with Scripture. Her second book, All Who Are Weary: Easing the Burden on the Walk with Mental Illness, offers a pastoral and Scriptural accompaniment to those facing symptoms and diagnoses of mental illness along with the families, friends, communities, pastors, and therapists who care for them.

When her son was born, Emmy transitioned out of called ministry. She now serves as the Editor of the Church Anew blog, where she helps curate an amazing collection of new and long-time authors that share a fresh, bold, and faithful witness for the church.

As a preacher and writer, she is passionate about curating worship and theological practices that dismantle barriers to those historically marginalized by Christian practice. She believes in and works for a church rooted in accessibility, intentionality, integrity, and transformation, knowing that God is already out ahead of us creating expansive space for those most hungry for the good and liberating news of Jesus.

Emmy lives in Minneapolis and has a life full of preschooler-chasing alongside her wife Michelle.

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