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The Reverend Dr. William A. Evertsberg
Scattered across the pages of the Bible are scores, maybe hundreds, of characters who are integral to the story but are never named. Jesus’ longest conversation in the Bible is with a woman at a Samaritan well, and without a little boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fishes, Jesus never could have nourished the hungry crowd of 5,000, and yet neither character gets a name.
They’re not nameless; they surely have names; it’s just that the storyteller doesn’t know what they are or never slows down enough to provide that information.
During Epiphany and Lent, Christine and I will pay modest homage to these vital but anonymous figures in a sermon series called The Unnamed, which will give us an excuse to investigate the Bible’s sweeping narrative arc from Genesis to Revelation and to shine a flashlight into a couple of perhaps underexplored corners of the biblical narrative.
Nobody knows the name of the Queen of Sheba or the shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, but they’re beautiful parts of the long story.
| Date | Sermon | Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| January 15, 2nd Epiphany |
I: Groundling, Mother, Snake | Genesis 2–3 |
| January 22, 3rd Epiphany |
II: Lot’s Wife | Genesis 19:12–29 |
| January 29, 4th Epiphany |
III: Pharaoh’s Sommelier | Genesis 40–41 |
| February 5, Gospel Sunday |
Hold On to What You Know! | Vernon Clark |
| February 12, 6th Epiphany |
IV: Pharaoh’s Daughter | Exodus 2:1–10 |
| February 19, Last Epiphany |
V: The Witch of Endor | 1 Samuel 28:3–25 |
| February 22 Ash Wednesday |
VI: The Woman Who Kept Working Late at the Office | John 8:1–11 |
| February 26, 1st Lent | VII: The Woman with the Chronic Condition | Mark 5:24–34 |
| March 5, 2nd Lent | VIII: The Hyphenated Woman | Mark 7:24–30 |
| March 12, 3rd Lent | IX: The Quintuple Divorcée | John 4:5–42 |
| March 19, 4th Lent | X: The Man Who’d Never Seen a Blessed Thing | John 9:1–41 |
| March 26, 5th Lent | XI: Pilate’s Wife | Matthew 27:11–26 |
| April 2, Palm Sunday |
XII: The Gangsters | Luke 23:32–43 |
| April 6, Maundy Thursday |
XIII: The Gunnery Sergeant | Mark 15: 33–39; John 19:31–36 |
| April 9, Easter | XIV: The Gen ‘Z’ Guy | Mark 14:43–51; Mark 16:1–8 |