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I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The woman in front of me was a woman of integrity, deep faith and sincere commitment to the church, She had been hired to be a pastoral assistant, and in that role she had contributed substantial time and amazing gifts to the congregation. She had asked for a …
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Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these thin [Phil. 4:8] Being Christians does not exempt us from being children of our time. Like Christians of times past, …
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In many non-Western societies, children are regarded not as incomplete adults but as collective symbols of social and personal fulfillment. Consequently, children figure prominently in rituals of purification, healing, restoration, various forms of divination and in rites of passage. in much of Christianity, however, children are deemed unfit for the central rites until puberty. Growing …
Continue reading “A Child Shall Lead Us (Is. 11:6, 8-9; Mk. 10:15; Matt. 18:1ff; Lk. 11:11ff)”
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When I was ten years old, I wanted to be a detective. With Nancy Drew as my guide and my best chum Margaret at my side, I set out to solve a local murder mystery. We combed the neighborhood for clues and turned up scraps of paper we imagined were encoded with cryptic messages. We …
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Since I live near Lake Michigan, I take frequent walks along the lake and gaze out at the water, which stretches to the distant horizon. Sometimes it’s still, sparkling in the sunlight, an oasis of calm soothing me on a hectic day. On other days, gray clouds gather overhead, waves crash against the breakers below …
Continue reading “A Desert in Bloom (Is. 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matt. 11:2-11)”
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“When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.” Passages like this assure me there’s a place for me and the people I serve. Unlike John’s story of Thomas, Matthew didn’t single out one disciple as the doubter. He says that some doubted.” While Thomas was clear about his doubt (“unless I see the …
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A generation ago, Ernest Becker taught us that the fear of dying is the mainspring of all human activity, from our smallest efforts at survival to our loftiest cultural achievements. So far as I can tell, our species continues to confirm that thesis. Even if it bankrupts Social Security, takes down Medicare and leaves half …
Continue reading “A Generation Ago (Ezk. 37:1-14; Ps. 130; Rom. 8:6-11; John 11:1-45)”
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One of my friends once complained about the “unfairness” of her parents-in-law. Her husband was a first son who was competent in his work and conscientious in his care of his old parents. The point of discontent had to do with the parents’ favoring of the younger son, who was lazy and irresponsible, and who …
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The Psalms have always functioned as a book of common prayer. But there is also a long history of turning to the Psalter as a sourcebook for poetry. It not difficult to see why. Many of the psalms foreground the act of speech or song — the activity of utterance itself — as the chief …
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Here in the rural upper Midwest, it seems every other person has a pole barn. Usually it’s full of old tires, old brakes, a trailer, dozens of tools gathering rust, coffee cans loaded with lug nuts and screws. But then almost nobody in America lives like the desert monks. Ed and Edna’s place is pretty …
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The scripture readings for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost contain an extraordinary consistency. Amos 8:4-7 describes God pressing a serious charge against his people for oppressing the poor and seeing religion as an annoying "new moon" inconvenience. The Epistle reading in I Timothy 2:1-8 speaks of the cessation of anger and quarreling as marks of …
Continue reading “A New Moon Sensitivity (Amos 8:4-7, I timothy 2:1-8, Luke 16:1-3)”
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They stare out at me, these long-gone great-grandparents whose photos grace my living room wall. On the right is my paternal great-grandfather — mustached, serious, hair parted in the center and slicked back, ears fanning out on each side of his head. His luminous brown eyes gaze directly into the camera. He was a musician. …
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“It is what comes out of a person that defiles.” With these words, Jesus concludes a diatribe against his fellow Jews, the Pharisees and scribes. Mark cites Jesus as using the word “hypocrites” in describing them. This is strong and disturbing stuff. Sadly, Christians have used Jesus’ denunciations to justify exclusion and persecution in the …
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The angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.”. . . Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well …
Continue reading “A Question of Faith (Lk. 1:13, 18; 30-31, 34)”
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When a rabbi was asked, "Why is it that you rabbis put much of your teaching in the form of question?" the rabbi replied, ‘So what’s wrong with a question?" The rabbi may be on to something. Consider the question that Moses knew the Hebrews would ask him about the liberating God. "What is his …
Continue reading “A Questionable God (Exodus 3:1-15, Matthew 16:21-28, Romans 12:9-21)”
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One of the buzz phrases in the United Methodist Church appointment process these days is "seasons of ministry." As our bishops and cabinets try to encourage longer-term ministry appointments, this phrase helps us expand our imaginations. For too long in our tradition, clergy lived year to year, and so did congregations. Now we are imagining …
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Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the. house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they …
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If preachers are ever inclined to take a break from the rigors of the lectionary, it is in the middle of the summer, when the blackberries are ripe for picking and the pews are thinly populated. I have a special place in my heart for those who bravely shape and roll out a summer set …
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I am the resurrection and the life; they who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26) . The church clings to these words like few other sayings of Jesus. The scene of Jesus with two grieving sisters, weeping at the …
Continue reading “A Twofold Death and Resurrection (Jn. 11:25-26)”
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Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. (Isa. 25:9) The best that can be said of the church in these past weeks of Lent is that we are among those who have waited. Questions were raised that had no ready answers — sin, injustice, evil, suffering, the …
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In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain. For centuries they had been tolerated there, and their labor had helped to build a great country. But King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, anxious to establish their hold over a newly united Spain by means of the Catholic Church and the Inquisition, gave the Jews a stark …
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The Covenant for holy baptism, as found in the United Methodist Book of Worship, tells the biblical story of water. “Eternal Father,” the story begins, “when nothing existed but chaos, you swept across the dark waters and brought forth light. In the days of Noah you saved those on the ark through water. After the …
Continue reading “A Watery Solution (Mark 1:4-11; Genesis 1:1-5)”
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Recently I watched the PBS series on the Book of Genesis with a dozen older women at a retirement home. The segment dealt with Abram’s call, how the Lord said to Abram, "Go," and he went. We heard Lewis Smedes wonder aloud whether a tape recorder would have picked up a real "voice" of the …
Continue reading “A Word and a Calling (1 Sam. 3:1-20; Jn. 1:43-51)”
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Christians, alas, are not famous for encouraging one another. Sometimes the phrase “Christian love” has an unintended sense of irony about it. And the verse that reads “see how these Christians love one another” is often used as a rebuke to the patent lack of love and encouragement among Christians. There is an old story …
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Abide. It’s an old-fashioned word. Highway motel signs read "Stay here," not "Abide with us tonight." Baseball announcers don’t sum up an inning with "One hit, a walk and two abiding on base." Nor do Northwestern University football fans breathe easier because Gary Barnett is abiding as head coach. Of the 17 uses of abide …
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I am not an avid gardener. I like the outdoors but would rather hike or bicycle in it than work in it. So when I read, "Every branch that bears fruit [God] prunes to make it bear more fruit," I think of my wife, whose approach to pruning is to "whack it down to the …
Continue reading “Abiding Love (John 15:1-17; 1 John 5:1-6)”
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Just like that, Jesus is gone. He reappears just long enough to say goodbye. Like a wraith, like a dream, he leaves behind no children, no estate, no writings, no trace of himself except this feeling that his presence was real, that his absence is temporary. Christians have this uncanny feeling that he was just …
Continue reading “Above and Beyond (Lk. 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11)”
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The most precisely regulated social order that I’ve experienced was junior high school. The building itself was a forbidding, huge, gray concrete thing with tiny windows and permanent streaks down the sides so that it always looked as if it had been in a drizzle. We had heard that it was originally built as a …
Continue reading “Abundant Life (Prov. 25:6-7; Heb. 13:1-8,15-16; Lk. 14:1, 7-14)”
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In a church I served, one of the pillars of the congregation stopped by my office just before services to tell me he’d been “born again.” “You’ve been what?” I asked. “I visited my brother-in-law’s church, the Running River of Life Tabernacle, and I don’t know what it was, but something happened and I’m born …
Continue reading “Acknowledgment (Ps. 23; I Sam. 13:1-16;Eph. 5:8-14;John 9:1-41)”
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“Stir up your power 0 Lord, and come. . . .” This traditional prayer for the First Sunday in Advent begins with abrupt and urgent entreaty. There is no delay for caressing words of prayerful invocation; rude as a wakening alarm, we call for God to get moving. The collect for the following week …
Continue reading “Advent Alchemy (Isaiah 64:1-9, I Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37)”
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I write this in my parked car at Half Moon Bay, 30 miles south of San Francisco. It is a warm and beautiful late-fall day, with sunbathers getting their last tan of the season. Russian nuclear submarines are sitting somewhere out there beyond the horizon. If Californians are lucky, the submarines are just outside the …
Continue reading “Advent Preaching: Burden and Hope (Rom. 8:24-25)”
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Often when I address affluent church audiences on the subject of liberation theology I am asked: When oppressed people get liberated, what then? Further honing of the question yields this: What kind of ethic will they (oppressed people) develop to prohibit them from becoming oppressors? And doesn’t the liberation struggle destroy law and order? I …
Continue reading “After Liberation, What? (Lev.19:1-2, 15-18; Mt. 22:34-46)”
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Revelation 21: 1-5 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more … I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold the dwelling of God is with men … He will wipe away every tear …
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Ash Wednesday is a day of penitence marking the beginning of Lent, a journey of 40 days to Good Friday and Easter. Ash Wednesday is a time of recalling our mortality (“ashes to ashes”), repenting of wrongs, and preparing for death and resurrection, both of Christ and of ourselves. To be sure, the reformer among …
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Most of us enjoy stories about naïve amateurs who make bizarre mistakes. We chuckle knowingly over the man who complained about the performance of his new powerboat, only to have the marina staff discover that he’d launched the boat without taking it off the trailer, or the woman who mistook the CD-ROM drive on her …
Continue reading “Amateurs and Rookies (Is. 6:1-8; 1 Cor. 1.5:1-11; Lk. 5:1-11)”
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"‘Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests" (Matt. 22:9-10). "I cannot come to the banquet; don’t trouble me now. I have bought …
Continue reading “An Invitation (Phil. 4:1-9; Mat. 22:1-14)”
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When I read this passage, I’d like to hear the inflection that Jesus gave to these words. “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” The inflection of the words makes a considerable impact on the meaning of the reading as heard, and would tell us much about Jesus’ reaction to …
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I read this week’s lectionary passages last summer in the Urubamba Valley in my native Peru, and in my native Spanish: “Pero Cristo ya vino, y ahora el es el Sumo sacerdote . . . ” At first I resisted the Hebrews passage, as I prefer Jesus’ concrete teachings to more abstract theological concepts. So, …
Continue reading “Another Commandment (Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34)”
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In his book Abel’s Island William Steig tells the story of a mouse (Abel) who is marooned on an island for an entire year. In the first part of the book, Abel is all alone on the island. Unlike the participants in the Survivor TV series, he has no one around to help him survive …
Continue reading “Anticipation (Jer. 33:14-16; 1 Thess. 3:9-13; Ps. 25:1-9; Lk. 21:25-36)”
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Most years, Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with hot dogs and homemade ice cream. Most years, we mention justice, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when the fireworks paint red, white and blue across the evening sky and the ice cream is finally ready to eat. But this year, American Independence Day observances will …
Continue reading “Anxious Moments (Matthew 11:16-19, 28-30, Romans 7:15-25a)”
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The most prophetic thing that Thomas Merton ever did was to say to a drugstore clerk who asked him which brand of toothpaste he preferred, "I don’t care." Intrigued by the clerk’s response, Merton wrote, "He almost dropped dead. I was supposed to feel strongly about Colgate or Pepsodent or Crest. . . And they …
Continue reading “Apocalypse Now (Is. 64:1-9; Ps. 80:1-7, 17-19; 1Cor. 1:3-9; Mk. 13:24-37)”
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You are salt to the world. And if salt becomes tasteless, how is its saltiness to be restored? It is good for nothing but to be thrown away and trodden underfoot. I guess I have to blame it all on Robert Duvall. The Apostle had jus come out on video and I watched it late …
Continue reading “Apostle at my Door (Is. 58:1-12; I Cor. 2:1-16;Ps. 112:1-10; Matt. 5:13-20.)”
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When I take a long road trip the route I choose depends on whether I am driving my car or riding my motorcycle. If I have a tight time line, I drive my car. I prefer to travel on interstate highways if possible. My priority is to get to my destination quickly; I map out …
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When I read the lectionary texts for this week, I was disappointed. Give me texts of David sinning, Amos raging against the "cows" of Bashan or Jesus again in trouble for loving outcasts. These I can run with. But don’t give me Paul always confident, walking by faith and not sight, apparently really feeling he’d …
Continue reading “Arguing with Paul (2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17)”
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On the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel called Dominus Flevit. The name comes from Luke’s Gospel, which contains not one but two accounts of Jesus’ grief over the loss of Jerusalem. According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the …
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Aron Ralston knew he would die before the next morning’s sunrise. Five days earlier he’d been walking a trail in a narrow desert canyon in Utah and had climbed down from a large chock-stone along his route. A chock-stone is a huge boulder that’s wedged between other stones or canyon walls. This one may have …
Continue reading “As Good as Dead (Rom. 4:13-25; Matt. 9:9-13, 18-26)”
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Are there any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:13,14). I looked down at …
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When my children were small, the mommy in me always played tug-of-war with the minister in me. Often, while sitting in an evening meeting, I would dream of being home, curled up in bed, reading to my little ones. And reading to the little me in me. Margaret Wise Brown’s The Runaway Bunny is a …
Continue reading “At Home in God (Acts 2:42-47;Ps.23;I Pet.2:l9-25;John l0:1-10)”
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Pastor, my cousin is in Genera! Hospital. Her name is Theda Manheim. The family doesn’t go to church. Won’t you visit her?” It was more of a command than a request. Clara Goggins was like that. She was known for her tangle of gray hair, ridiculous hats and sharp tongue. Her heart was pure, though …
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I didn’t want to come back. My consciousness hovered somewhere above the body lying on the gurney. It was all over, I thought. The last sensation I remembered had been incomprehensible pain, then a tunnel, and a grinding noise as described in other "near death experiences." But unlike other people who tell of "NDEs," I …
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In Richard Powers’s novel The Echo Maker, a young man suffers a brain injury in an auto accident and is afflicted with Capgras syndrome. When he wakes from a coma, he can see and even recognize family members and friends, but he takes them for impostors. As the delusional fellow tries to learn why he’s …
Continue reading “Baffling Blindness (1 Sam. 16:1-13; Ps. 23; Eph. 5:8-14; Jn. 9:1-41)”
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"Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, "The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’" (Matt. 15:20-21). I was emphasizing to parents of confirmands that the young people should be …
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When Sister Mary Corita was asked to submit a piece of her artwork for consideration in the Vatican exhibit at the 1964 New York Worlds Fair, she chose to do a piece on the Beatitudes. Although it was not finally selected for the exhibit, the 4’ by 40’ banner is a dynamic, vibrant testament to …
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Mark 13: 3l-37 But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son but only the Father. Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come. Christ will come again. He will come unexpectedly and suddenly. Therefore watch. Be on guard, be …
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The past is not over said Odessa Woolfolk of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Speaking to my divinity school class, Woolfolk spoke of systems that continue to oppress and seriously limit access to resources that are basic to any human being. With slavery a thing of the past, with segregation banned, with the right to …
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The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. . . . When he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; …
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According to Emily Dickinson, you speak the truth best when you tell it “slant.” I am quite sure when she penned this line the blessed Trinity was far from her thoughts. Nonetheless, her characterization of truth-telling is good to keep in mind when approaching this mysterious feast of God, the three in one and one …
Continue reading “Between the Lines (Prov. 8: 1-4, 22-31; Ps. 8; Rom. 5: 1-5; Jn. 16: 12-15)”
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“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). We live in between the first coming of Jesus Christ and his second coming, and most of us feel a lot better about the first one. Christmas is about a baby, after all, …
Continue reading “Between Two Advents: In the Interim (Luke 21:28)”
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Paul and Jesus, each facing a crisis, are tempted to succumb to despair and fear. Each man has gone out in ministry to his own people and been rejected. Paul recognizes that his Jewish listeners do not accept his message about Jesus and opens Romans 9 with what is the barest beginning of his anxious …
Continue reading “Big Story (Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21)”
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Even the common lectionary cannot hold ecumenical friends together this Sunday. Some of us will depart from the scripture texts and focus on the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Some of us will center on the Mark 10 story of Jesus’ encounter with Bartimaeus. I want to acknowledge these different directions, and also reflect …
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In Edwin A. Abbott’s story Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions, the two-dimensional square narrator encounters a three-dimensional sphere that changes his perception of reality. While trying to find a scientific metaphor for religious experience in 1884, Abbott created a delightful story that is still a favorite among students of mathematics and physics, religion and …
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Matthew’s gospel has blood spattered all over it. The story opens "in the time of King Herod" (2:1), the tyrant about whom even the Romans joked, "Better Herod’s hus than his huios" (luckier to be Herod’s pig than one of his sons). Of the latter, nearly all died by their father’s orders, lest any supplant …
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Several decades ago, when I was filling out my application for seminary admission, I came to a question that asked me to provide biblical justification for my calling. I knew I wanted to attend seminary, but found it difficult to state why. Then I remembered my Wesley Foundation pastor preaching on 1 Corinthians 9:16b, and …
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In Flannery O’Connor’s short story "Revelation," Ruby Turpin is sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, evaluating each person around her. Ruby judges herself to be superior, by more than a grade or two, to everyone there, especially to a poor, unkempt, teenaged wretch seated across from her who is reading a book. Ruby thinks it …
Continue reading “Book ‘Em (Jer. 1:4-10; Cor. 13:1-13; Lk. 4:21-30)”
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I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” And so God declares he is writing himself into us, according to Jeremiah. In the evangelical tradition in which I grew up, we spoke of “letting Jesus into …
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The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. (Somebody once said that next to Homer’s Odyssey the Bible is the “eatingest” book in the world.) But John’s Gospel is the only one that sets the miracle at Passover. The connection is charged: It is God who feeds and saves, …
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In the little Georgia country church of my childhood, there was a story the older folks loved to tell again and again, laughing over it and savoring it and embellishing it. The tale involved a certain Sunday night in October 1938. Evening prayer services were in full swing when a man named Sam, a member …
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The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prisons to those who are bound [Isa. 61: 1-2]. But there is a …
Continue reading “Bringing Good Tidings to the Afflicted (Isa. 61:1-2)”
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We are building a house. I have noticed that there is some instinctual urge in empty nesters to do that. My husband and I are mesmerized by this project — reading books and doing Internet searches. Every time I go through the checkout line at the grocery store I succumb to the siren song of …
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One of the hardest things to do in our troubled North American society is build community. This is no less true in the Christian sector than it is in the secular world. Viable, wholesome community is what each of us needs in order to experience well-being, care and support. Yet in our capitalist, technological society …
Continue reading “Building Community Amid Troubles (Phil. 22-4; Matt. 21:28-32; Ezek. 18:1-4)”
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On February 19, 1998, a car sped across the grassy median of Interstate 95 near West Palm Beach into southbound traffic, then back into the northbound lanes. At least three people reported seeing a woman throw her infant son through the driver’s side window. When questioned by police, Krisann Haddad said she would “rather have …
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I don’t carry a beeper or a cell phone. The services of’ professional biblical scholars rarely require that level of immediate access. No emergency calls to interpret an obscure passage. No rushing to the scene of a textual corruption. Yet it could happen. We are rapidly becoming a society “on call.” Technology provides us with …
Continue reading “Call Me (Deut. (18:15-20; Ps. 111; I Cor. 8:1-13)”
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HOLY MOSES! The first surprise in this passage from Deuteronomy is that the biblical lawgiver par excellence is also the prototypical prophet. In 21st-century America, prophets are not so easily disguised as congressmen and senators. What does Washington have to do with Waco? Law, or the codification, enforcement and interpretation of community mores, does not …
Continue reading “Called to Order (Deut. 18:15-20; Ps. 111; I Cor. 8:1-13”
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The other day I was sitting in a coffee shop and couldn’t help overhearing an interesting and intense debate on the other side of the room. An older gentleman was trying his best to aid an inquisitive college student who had some hard-hitting questions. She asked about scripture, about authority and about the church. One …
Continue reading “Capital T (Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29)”
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In these litigious days, fast food restaurants warn us of the obvious. Before biting into that deep-fried McDonald’s apple pie, we read, “Caution: Contents may be hot.” What looks like soft, sweet, greasy comfort food could scald your trusting tongue. The familiar treat is not harmless. It may bite you back. The Beatitudes sneak up …
Continue reading “Caution: Contents May Be Hot (Matthew 5:1-12)”
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Few know blindness so profoundly as prisoners who once could see the whole world but now find the universe shrunk to the size of a cell. Inmates hear only what jailers allow, most often some version of "We own you." As for music, the rhythm of one’s own pulse must suffice, and that hardly leads …
Continue reading “Cellmates (Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11)”
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Chang Lee survived two brutal wars in his mother country, Korea. He lived through the dangers posed by Japanese bombs, Chinese howitzers, North Korean minefields and American carbines. But he did not survive an encounter with a mugger in the hallway of his own apartment in the U.S. He was brutally stabbed, and died at …
Book Chapter
The Bible is a unity of diverse writings which together are set forth by the Church as a revelation of God in history.
Book Chapter
The critical method finds its way between the horns of a dilemma: It rejects restraint from without upon liberty of interpretation, and at the same time excludes an arbitrary or capricious use of liberty by accepting the intrinsic control of the historical movement within the Bible itself.
Book Chapter
A chronology of early Old Testament writings with emphasis on the prophets and their interpretation of history; also: the call of Abraham; the post-exilic period; “Wisdom literature;” Apocalypses; the inconclusiveness of the Old Testament.
Book Chapter
Like many new movements, Christianity exhibits in its earliest history three successive stages: expansion, conflict, consolidation. The writings of the New Testament connect themselves naturally with these three stages, which may serve to provide a rough chronological scheme.
Book Chapter
We meet God in history, but God speaks to us beyond history. God provides the initiative and enters history as judgement and as power of renewal. God calls for the response of obedience.
Book Chapter
The place where history is made is the place of encounter between God and man, where the Word of God is heard and man responds in obedience. History is alive in the Church, which was brought into being by it, and continually witnesses to it. In our time history is being made in the Church.
Book Chapter
In the biblical history we are to find a revelation of God that can be understood as to give meaning to history in our own time. Those who hear, in the setting of the Church’s corporate worship, are summoned to place themselves within the history which is God’s revelation, at the point where it culminates in Jesus Christ, and to lay themselves open to the Word of judgement and of renewal which is spoken there to every human being.
Article
Elijah, the great prophet who has traveled the length of Israel and spoken the word of the Lord directly to Israel’s king, is now about to take the longest journey of all. Somehow he knows that his time has come. His disciple Elisha knows too, but they do not speak of it. Instead, Elijah turns …
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When we use words, images and pictures to communicate who God is and what God has done, we speak of God as shepherd, mother, fire, cloud and love. We relate to God using ideas that are common to our shared human experience because that is all we know how to do. Thus the scripture writers …
Continue reading “Chasing Jesus (Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-2)”
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Go to Harvard Square in Cambridge or Washington Square in New York City or any public place where chess players have gathered to watch or challenge each other. If you stand in the midst of the crowd long enough, you will eventually hear someone say, “That’s it!” It might be a soft whisper or a …
Continue reading “Checkmate (Dan. 7:9-10, 13-14; Rev.:4b-8; Ps. 93; Jn. 18:33-37)”
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A few months ago, the evening news was playing in the background as our family was getting organized for supper. I overheard the anchor ask, “Who is the most powerful preacher in Charlotte? Is it . . . ?” and he named four relatively prominent clergy. “Call in and vote! Or e-mail us! And we’ll …
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When I think of the Christmas story, I see the crèche that was displayed each year in the front hall of my family home. The manger scene began to take shape during the last week of Advent, when we cut fragrant pine branches and spread them on the hall table, then placed figurines of oxen …
Continue reading “Christ For The World (Is. 7:10-16; Ps. 80:1-7, 17-19; Rom. 1:1-7; Matt. 1:18-25)”
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Matthew’s account of the transfiguration of Jesus (17:1-9) ushers in Ash Wednesday, the sobering beginning of Lent. This magnificent text also concludes the celebrations of Epiphany, the manifestation of the divine on earth. During Epiphany, the whisper in Bethlehem becomes a shout heard round the world and no Gospel makes the announcement more clearly than …
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Matthew 28: 1-10 If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. … If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only …
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When I read Leviticus, I can almost see the mini-blinds being swiveled shut on the everyday world. Leviticus, after all, holds to a God who is Wholly Other. The creation, including humankind, is fashioned by divine hands but not out of divine stuff. This was not the theology of the world surrounding Leviticus, whether you …
Continue reading “Christ-haunted Landscape (Lev. 19:1-2,15-18)”
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1 Corinthians 1:18-25: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who being saved it is the power of God. The opposite of the love of God is the love of self. For Asian theologians in general, what is absolute about Jesus is not to be found …
Continue reading “Christian Spirituality (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)”
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My wife and I once toured the legendary Waterford crystal factory in Ireland, where furnaces roar 24 hours a day, powered by gas piped in from miles away. Sixteen hundred employees take turns at three shifts daily. Their training takes years, especially for the glass etchers, the smallest group among the staff. A company policy …
Continue reading “Clay Pots (Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)”
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The best storytellers paint pictures with words, using words to fill our minds with vivid imagery. I remember reading the first Harry Potter novel to my first-grade son. Each time we completed a chapter and I turned the page to start a new one he would shift in my lap and look away from the …
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As a Child, and then as a parent, this powerful story was abhorrent to me. In my youth I thought: God asked what of Abraham? Is this the God who I am supposed to worship? I was at the age when a child joyfully sings “Jesus Loves Me,” and God was demanding that Abraham do …
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Around 1967, a visitor came to worship at the church that my family attended. He was a minister on leave from his parish while he worked for Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. I remember watching him in the narthex. He would lean his whole body into his conversation partner’s space, and in a raised, urgent …
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In punishment for my sins, my HMO assigned me to a fundamentalist Baptist doctor who subjects me to theological conversation while he examines me. During the poking and prodding he’ll say, for example, “I don’t know how you preachers do it — the politics, the congregational complaining, the expectations of the people. I take my …
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Matthew 11:25-30 Come unto me all who are weary and burdened, I shall give you rest (Matt: 11:28). (This verse is found only in Matthew and not in any of the other three gospels. It is also found in the Gospel of Thomas which is not in the New Testament canon). This call of Jesus, …
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When the Counselor comes!” What was Jesus trying to tell us? His words came after an embarrassing incident. When none of us disciples was willing to wash someone else’s feet, Jesus did it. Our rabbi and leader. Not until much later would we understand what he was doing, but on that night we could only …
Continue reading “Coming Into Focus (Jn. 15:25-27; 16:4b-15; Acts 2:1-21)”
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When Erik confessed his faith on the festival of Pentecost, the entire family of believers watched and strained to hear his confession. His chubby fingers were surprisingly dexterous as he signed the words, although he also spoke, as if what he was signing was bursting through the silence of his deafness. This is what he …
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A funny thing happened to a pastor friend of mine. His congregation was baptizing a family in a river that ran not far from the Hispanic church that be served. As the newly baptized members came out of the water he handed them their baptismal certificates. Afterwards, in true Latino fashion, they celebrated a fiesta. …
Continue reading “Consorting with Aliens (Luke 24:13-35; 1 Peter 1: 17-23)”
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Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword . . . those who do not take their cross and follow me are not worthy of me I don’t think I’m alone …
Continue reading “Continuing in Sin (Rom. 6:1; Matt. 10:34, 38)”
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The form of a passage is often as instructive as its subject matter. So it is with John 9:1-41, the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. The text is pregnant with matters of major importance: the disciples ask about the relationship of suffering to sin. Jesus acts on his own initiative and not …
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Occasionally in the news one hears about an infant that has been abandoned by its parents — left at a church door, perhaps, or found on a side street somewhere, or even in a garbage can. If the parent or parents are found (usually in our North American context it is the mother), she or …
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In a few weeks voters in six states will decide on state constitutional amendments that will bar same-sex marriage and any other legal recognition of same-sex couples. Most mainline denominations have come out against the amendments even though some of them do not allow same-sex couples to wed in their churches. Most evangelicals and Catholics …
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My friend Glenn has a poet’s heart. We regularly meet to talk and he often ends our visits by reading a poem he has written or one be has found that speaks to him, I was not very interested in poetry until Glenn began sharing poems with me. Over time, however, I have grown not …
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HEY YOU! Don’t even think of parking that sermon near this playground! Take your Doubting-Thomas-Mobile to some other lot. Don’t even wait here with your motor running. OK — maybe it sounds like I don’t have a life. But Bible people are real to me. And my relationships with them change as I mature, just …
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Blaise Pascal evokes a sense of existential dread in this famous line: “The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me. ” In his poem For the Time Being: A .Christmas Oratorio, W. H. Auden pictures the human being forsaken in a blank, fathomless universe: We are afraid Of pain but more afraid of silence; for …
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When I was in grad school, my family moved into an apartment in South Chicago. When we saw that the door of the apartment had four locks, we wondered why we needed so many. I soon discovered that the benefit was mostly emotional. When we got inside at night, after being worried about whatever, we …
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All I know about Jesus is what I heard him say. That’s all I know about almost anybody. It’s not true that “deeds speak louder than words.” Only words speak. The old “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one” is only partly true. Most ministerial speech these days tends to be in the affirmative …
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Something’s missing in the current culture war over the Ten Commandments. I knew about Judge Roy Moore, the now-removed chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who waged and lost a stubborn fight to keep a Ten Commandments monument in his courthouse. What slipped past me is just how much this monument of his weighs: …
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Most new testament scholars say that the Gospel of Mark originally ended with the story of the women who go to the cemetery, only to encounter a mysterious young man pointing to Jesus’ empty tomb and announcing the resurrection. One of the challenges of this view is that if Mark truly ended his narrative here, …
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Those of us who spend a lot of time in church have heard Luke’s story of the transfiguration so often that we may think of it as a public event. According to Luke, it was not. Only three other people were there, which means it was an event not for the many but for the …
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Then Jesus looked up to heaven, gave a deep groan, and said to the man, Ephphatha, which means, “Open up!” [Mark 7:34]. As I write these words, I am enjoying the sound of rain spattering on the windowsill outside my study. I’m also enjoying the excellent music shimmering in the room, courtesy of the Public …
Continue reading “Deafness: Physical and Spiritual (Mark 7:34)”
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Woody Allen once remarked that humanity is at a crossroads: “One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly” These scriptural passages are about real choices. The scene from Joshua 24 is a covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem. In the …
Continue reading “Decisions (Joshua 24:1-2, 14-Th; John 6:56-69)”
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From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took Him aside and began …
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Even the Messiah had to adjust his schedule when events took a surprising turn. The story of Jesus coming-out event as told by John demonstrates his spiritual flexibility. “My hour has not yet come.” The phrase suggests that Jesus had hoped for a more carefully chosen setting for his first presentation of himself. In the …
Continue reading “Defining Moment (Ps. 36:5-10; Is. 62:1-5; John 2:1-11)”
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Jesus said to them, "Have you never read m the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces …
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How can God reach us through little pieces of text in a lectionary? How can God break through our enslavement to our various idolatries and gift us? Perhaps by forcing us to hear many different voices besides our own so that we can find — in the space between the voices — some room for …
Continue reading “Discerning What is Right (I Kg. 3:5-12; Rom. 8:28-30; Mt. 13:44-52)”
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In the reading from Luke we confront stark and conflictual sayings of Jesus that sit poorly with contemporary images of God. Our culture seems to prize a God with an infinite capacity for empathy, a God who is "nice." (Bumper stickers tell you that "Jesus loves you" even if everyone else thinks you’re an ogre …
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What the widow in the Luke parable wants from the judge is vengeance or vindication. True, some have translated the original into something more polite such as "give the verdict to my side" or "give me justice." Well, it is true the widow wanted justice done, and to her benefit. But it seems she wanted …
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We were at the lake, my daily walking spot. I had brought a friend who needed to talk. Her head was down as if she were searching for meaning, hope and traces of God’s ways in the ruts of the muddy path. My head was down too, in silent solidarity. We walked. Suddenly I missed …
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Christians throughout the ages have proclaimed that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb.13:8). The implicit teaching is that by being eternally the same, he is therefore divine: a Rock of Ages and, like the Father of Lights, beyond the shadow of changing. He is. But what of his humanity, which …
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The family is a funny institution. We make much of being related to each other, of sharing common ancestors, common history, common DNA. We speak of fierce loyalties with phrases like “Blood is thicker than water.” As parents and children, brothers and sisters, we have bonds that go beyond words. We love each other even …
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In Garrison Keillor’s mythical Lake Wobegon, Pastor Ingqvist is alarmed when he glances at Dear Abby columns and notices how often she refers her readers to ministers. Talk to your minister, Abby counsels a 14-year-old deeply in love with a 50-something married man serving serious time in a federal penitentiary. . . . as she …
Continue reading “Don’t be Ridiculous (Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58)”
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As Jesus was about to descend the Mount of Olives to enter Jerusalem, Mark reports, he dispatched two of his disciples to fetch a colt. A seemingly minor matter of transportation it would seem, but surprisingly, over half of Mark’s story of Jesus’ entry into the city is occupied with mundane details about acquiring this …
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In the play A Thousand Clowns by Herb Gardner, a character named Murray discovers that he can offer a simple apology to almost anyone — even a complete stranger — and he or she will forgive him. He stands on the corner of 51st and Lexington in New York City one day, telling those who …
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“…I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32) The latest ruckus to hit the house of God here at 435 Summit Drive was precipitated (as was the previous one) by the pastor. All I did was to suggest to an amateur woodcarver in the congregation that …
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In the lectionary reading for the fourth Sunday of Advent, Ahaz declines to ask God for a sign lest he put God to the test and thus be guilty of what Scripture elsewhere denounces as spiritual presumption. God answers by saying that if Ahaz will not ask for a sign then God will give him …
Continue reading “Dreams and Letting God Be God (Isa. 7:10-17)”
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If you are ever invited to a gala event where a constitutional monarch is present, you will be told to wear a dark suit or a formal dress. If you do not follow the dress code, you will be denied entry and sent back into the darkness from which you came. We’re talking formal wear …
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Book Review: Job (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary). By Samuel E. Balentine. Smyth & Helwys, 714 pp. The book of Job is one of the most beautiful and perplexing books of the Bible. G. K. Chesterton said, "The Iliad is great because all of life is a battle; the Odyssey is great because all …
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The walking dead. “These are the words of African-American soldier Leon Bass as he described the horror he saw when Americans liberated prisoners in the Buchenwald prison camp in April 1945. Today some call confirmed drug addicts “the walking dead.” Then there’s the book/film Dead Man Walking — which describes many of us spiritually. There …
Continue reading “Dying to Live (Rom. 6:1b-11; Matt. 10:24-39)”
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I like the fertility symbolism surrounding Easter–bunnies scattering colorful eggs all over the place for children to find, the Teutonic goddess of spring, earth renewing itself, etc. If these ancient rites hadn’t been co-opted by capitalism, hadn’t morphed into pastel M&Ms, plastic grass and My Little Ponies with bunny ears, I might find it a …
Continue reading “Easter (Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Lk.24:13-35)”
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Lent is the time when we prepare ourselves to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from death. So why do we begin by thinking about temptations? Because the temptations belong not just to Jesus, but to us as well. Temptations arise in every area of life, even for the most faithful, as we approach the events …
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In her book Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, Anne Lamott describes the afternoon she misplaced her father. His brain cancer had progressed to the point where he was functioning much like an eager-to-please three year-old. Lamott had brought him along with her one day as she ran errands. Just before she …
Continue reading “Eavesdropping (Mic. 6:1-8;I Cor. 1:18-31;Matt. 5:1-12; Ps. 15)”
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On a Sunday morning in a certain city church, the Gospel lesson had been read and the minister was about to begin the sermon. Suddenly a stranger seated in the balcony stood up and interrupted the service. "I have a word from the Lord!" he shouted. Heads whipped around, and ushers bounded up the balcony …
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“After these things,” John says. After Jesus had been crucified and buried, after he had risen from the dead and appeared to his disciples — after all these things, “Jesus showed himself again.” Why? I remember a concert at which the singer left the stage before we in the audience were ready for him to …
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I had already attended two colleges when one day I wandered into a third. The sign above the door of an old mansion in Fort Vancouver, Washington, read “Evergreen State College.” “What seminars are you offering this fall?” I asked a woman behind the desk. “Reality,” she responded. “Sign me up!” I replied. Fifteen years …
Continue reading “Enter Here (Acts 2:42-47,1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10)”
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When I was a girl, I spent a lot of time in the woods, which were full of treasures for me. At night I lined them up on my bed: fat flakes of mica, buckeyes bigger than shooter marbles, blue jay feathers, bird bones and — if I was lucky — a cicada shell, one …
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For five weeks the Lectionary journey through the Gospel of Mark is interrupted by a brief sojourn into the sixth chapter of John. The chapter opens with two familiar stories from the synoptic Gospels: the feeding of the multitude (a story so important that it appears six times in the four Gospels) and Jesus walking …
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We who teach in seminaries, colleges and universities often hear the issue of standards and excellence raised. Time and again I have heard colleagues, deans and presidents say, “We can’t compromise our standards.” Usually this statement surfaces when the discussion is about increasing ethnic minority enrollment or increasing the number of women and ethnic-minority faculty. …
Continue reading “Excellence Beyond Standards (Is.25:6-9; Phil.4:4-13; Mt.22:1-10)”
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There’s a phrase tucked away in Psalm 146 that provides the basis for our Advent hope: God “keeps his promise for ever.” Without that assurance there is no hope and no sense in Advent. Our hope is in God. The psalm underlines that conviction, as the confident prayer for the king of last week’s psalm …
Continue reading “Exposed and Waiting (Ps. 146; Is. 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matt. 11:2-11)”
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By the time we reach the 12th chapter of Mark, Jesus finds himself in the middle of a kind of theological cross-examination free-for-all. Priests, scribes, elders and other assorted defenders of the letter of the law are swarming all over him in a frenzy of entrapment. First there’s a question about divorce (with a follow-up …
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Next to the window in my study, where I can’t but see it every day, there’s a framed cartoon from an old edition of the National Lampoon. It’s a spoof of a Medici rose window from the cathedral in Florence, and depicts a laughing camel leaping with ease through the eye of a needle. The …
Continue reading “Eye of the Needle (I Tim. 6:6-19; Lk. 16:19-31)”
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Sarah, Sarah, how much alike you and I are! A day full of agape love and unabashed joy when we’ve received the gift of a precious child. Then hours of fear and jealous rage concerning the future of the adored son. Sarah has been through a lot. Because she is barren, she gives her slave …
Continue reading “Facing Fear (Genesis 21:8-12; Matthew 10:26-30)”
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Book Review: Inequality and Christian Ethics. By Douglas Hicks. Cambridge University Press, 287 pp.; also in paperback. The Common Good and Christian Ethics. By David Hollenbach, S.J. Cambridge University Press, 269 pp.; also in paperback. What Government Can Do: Dealing with Poverty and Inequality. By Benjamin I. Page and James R. Simmons. University of …
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“For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right” (2 Thess. 3:11-13). …
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My two sisters are instruments of God’s grace — God’s unconditional, steadfast love. No matter how far I travel, no matter how old I become, or whether they die before I die, I will never be free of my sisters. They are intricately woven into the fabric of my being. My own identity is wrapped …
Continue reading “Family Feuds (Genesis 25:19-34; Romans 8:1-11)”
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Alice Thompson lived with her parents in rural southern Illinois. Besides a house and a tool shed, the other building on their small acreage was a chicken coop where the egg-laying hens roosted. When young Alice found some matches, she took them into the chicken coop to see if she could figure out how to …
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Our reformer ancestors would be appalled by some of the small traditions of joy and triumph that have crept into the Christian celebration of Pentecost. We’ve added trumpet blasts to mimic the great sound of the wind of the spirit, we wave red streamers on bamboo rods, raise clouds of red and white balloons, and …
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Fit for the Reign of God Israel’s covenant with God Stipulated that no other powers, divine or human, would rule the people’s lives. Yet the biblical story repeatedly tells of the nation’s turn away from God’s rule to other gods or to the misguided political judgments of the kings and rulers who did not heed …
Continue reading “Fit for the Reign of God (I Kings 19:19-21; Luke 9:57-62; Gal. 5:1, 13-25)”
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"Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali" (Matt. 4:12-13) . The Gospel reading begins with this quaint reference to old tribal boundaries, meaningless long before Matthew. But these verses do …
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"These people who have turned the world upside down have come here also". "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of God who called you out of darkness into marvelous light". It is fascinating that the ministry of the apostle Paul …
Continue reading “Flipping the World on Its Head (Acts 17:6; I Pet. 2:91)”
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Good Shepherd Sunday! The imagery in the readings is beautiful and triumphant, a fitting trumpeting of Christ’s victory over sin, death and the devil. The foreboding passion sayings are past, the betrayals have been left behind, Jesus is the good shepherd and we are his flock, the sheep of his pasture. Jesus has proven his …
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He . . . sends rain on the just and on the unjust [Matt. 5:45]. The land would have to be very dry before one would gladly welcome a flood: days of torrential rain soaking the parched soil until it could hold no more, turning the solid earth into a quagmire. Rivers rising and sweeping …
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Just where Lenin Avenue makes a turn, coming out of downtown Moscow and heading out toward the southwest suburbs, stands St. Nicholas’s Church. The first sight of St. Nicholas’s is like a friendly ambush by a clown jumping out to surprise you, all dressed up in orange and green and white. Against the gray and …
Continue reading “Foolhardy Faith (Ps.66:7-18;John 14:15-21;Acts 17:22-31;I Pet.3:13-22)”
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One Sunday soon, I’ll have news to share with my congregation. I’ll announce, with great fanfare, my denomination’s latest partnership agreement with another denomination. Or I’ll share the latest vote on full communion. And then I’ll look out into the pews and see members showing polite interest at best, or yawning. Church leaders may be …
Continue reading “Foolish Belonging (1 Corinthians 1:10-18)”
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In the matter of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the Washington Post, we stipulate that compassion be shown to Joan Biskupic, a Post writer who reported on Scalia’s April 9 speech in Mississippi on religion and public life. Using secondhand accounts, without a full text of the original speech, Biskupic reported that Scalia “delivered …
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Jesus’ act of washing the disciples’ feet has been called "the sacrament that almost made it." It contains both the earthly element and the divine command which constitute a sacrament. Yet except for Catholics on Maundy Thursday and a few sects, not many Christians wash feet. Perhaps Jesus made his point about doing menial service …
Continue reading “Foot Washing and Last Things (John 13:1-20)”
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The first three Sundays of Advent speak of an adult Christ and the future reign of God not of an infant born in the past. Only on the fourth Sunday of Advent do we turn back to the event of annunciation, and then on Christmas Eve to the birth of the Christ child. It must …
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Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? [Gen. 18:24]. In 1567 the Jesuit Luis de Almeida began preaching Christ in Nagasaki. On February 5, 1597, 26 Japanese …
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Each time the invitation to the table was offered, he was offered he sat silently in the pew. Other would excuse themselves as they passed in front of him, but he never moved. When I visited him at his home, I cautiously broached the subject. “I can’t do it,” he answered. “1 can’t come to …
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Few bytes of humor have logged more miles on the Internet than certain bloopers and gaffes collected by Richard Lederer (in Anguished English and More Anguished English), and those excerpts having to do with religion seem to circulate most widely. Consequently, most e-mail users have seen such Sunday school gems as "Noah’s wife was called …
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The other day my husband, Ken, and I splashed and swam in a pool, then ate burgers and drank iced tea at a barbecue hosted by our friends Ann Marie and Patricia. We are pleased and proud of the honorary titles “Uncle Ken” and “Auntie Rachel,” bestowed on us by this couple and the children …
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When I was in kindergarten, one of my favorite activities was “What’s in the box?” The teacher cut a hand-sized hole in a box and placed a mystery object inside. You could reach in the box, smell the box, shake the box — everything but open the box. Each one of us would take a …
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For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace [Isa. 9:6]. Probably most of us have had the experience of receiving, right out of the blue, a gift from someone we really don’t know all that …
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In Dallas, Texas, one week prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, I heard German New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias reminisce about his life in Israel where his parents were missionaries. After WWII, he returned nervously to Israel to see if the treatment of Jews by the Nazi regime had severed forever his friendships there. …
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A young seminarian could effectively caricature the preaching of his supervising pastor. “Repent!” he would holler at the top of his lungs. “Too late,” he would add sotto voce, his head turned aside, as if walking away. His supervising pastor, the Zephaniah of the Great Plains, must have been stuck on the texts for the …
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Late in Jesus’ ministry, the disciples stood with him on Jerusalem’s holiest ground and stared at the stunningly beautiful temple, Herod’s masterpiece of appeasement of the Jews. It was a sight to stir the soul.. Though the temple has been gone since 70 AD., the site still stirs wonder as the foundation stones remind today’s …
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‘When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood” (Isa. 1:15b). Instead of perpetuating a world of violence, Isaiah proposes a vision that demands another reality — a reality that requires peacemaking: doing good, seeking …
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Yes, Advent is a season to make our longing conscious. But primarily it is a season to become more aware of the God who creates that longing in us. A phrase from the Collect for the Presence of Christ in the Episcopal service of evening prayer expresses the Advent theme well. “Kindle our hearts and …
Continue reading “Gate-crashing God (Ps. 72; Is. 11:1-10; Rom. 15:4-13; Matt. 3:1-12)”
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I had a childhood friend whose mother yelled at her a lot. Her mother’s ravings, however, were rarely attached to identifiable offenses. Asked why she was yelling, she’d snarl, “On general principles!” It was a free-form thing. Sometimes she’d yell about real crimes, but Tina was innocent of many of them. Her mother was unbowed. …
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In a lecture on “The Renewal of the Inner City Church,” Jim Wallis told a group of pastors true stories of declining inner-city churches that had, by the grace of God, rediscovered their mission and begun to thrive. I was inspired, but in the conversation afterwards one pastor after another criticized Wallis’s speech. They accused …
Continue reading “Get Out of Here! (I Cor. 15:1-11; Lk. 5:1-11)”
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At every wedding we wait for the moment when we witness a bride and groom vow faithfulness to each other “til death us do part.” We think when we hear those words, or even more when we speak them ourselves, that death will come to visit much later, at some far distant boundary of a …
Continue reading “Glorious Promises (Is. 62:1-5; Jn. 2:1-11)”
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Oh, the majesty and magnificence of God’s presence! Oh, the power and splendor of his sanctuary!. . Alanj wrapped him in swaddling clothes and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. After Advent’s four weeks of preparation for God’s coming, of learning again what it means to …
Continue reading “Go Out in Joy (Ps. 96; Is 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Lk. 2:1-20)”
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“Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off?” Jeremiah 23:23 There was a land of great beauty and promise, flowing with milk and honey. And people wandered there, struggled through the wilderness to get there, were surely led by God there. The people came to form a …
Continue reading “God in a Pocket (Jer. 23:23-29; Ps. 82; Heb. 11:29-12:2; Lk. 12:49-56)”
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And why not do evil that good may come? [Rom. 3:8]. The Apostle Paul was not asking that old and naïve question, “Does the end justify the means?” He was too much a realist for that. He was well aware that if the end doesn’t justify the means, nothing could. Life does not offer us …
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Inevitably, in the course of a pastoral career, one encounters that person — the spouse of an active member, or an avid golfer — who claims not to need to attend weekly services because “I can worship God in nature.” Possible comebacks range from mild to sarcastic, but they rarely make any impression. A better …
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For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the at the world might be saved through him. [John 3:17]. Go ahead admit it, preacher. You love it. Lent is your favorite season of the church year. Children love Christmas, missionaries love Epiphany, charismatics dote on Pentecost — but for preachers, nothing beats …
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It was Boxing Day 1989. Romania was in turmoil. The previous day, President Nicolae Ceausescu, unable to quell the tide of dissent in Bucharest, had been tried and executed. Now no one was in charge. Western reporters flooded into the country from the south, searching for someone who could speak English. Finally they found someone, …
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I don’t need a great deal of convincing any more (a by-product of middle age) to admit the truth of Isaiah 55: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” Indeed, one of my few remaining certainties is that whatever God’s thoughts are, I seldom find them …
Continue reading “God While God Is Near (Is. 55:6-9; Phil.1:1-5, 19-27; Mt. 20:1-16)”
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How strange that in the space of just one week a book reviewer in the New York Times mentions the “frisson-inducing" discovery only nine years ago of a ninth century B.C. stele referring to the "House of David," thus issuing "a stony rebuff to those who think that David is a mythical figure," while another …
Continue reading “God’s Entrance (2 Sam. 7:1-16; Luke 1:26-38)”
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But even as I write this, it’s Paul’s daunting promise to the Romans that haunts me: "Suffering produces endurance," he assures the Romans and us, "and endurance produces character and character produces hope." Recently I stood in the pulpit of my church and looked over the top of a white, 32-inch-long casket at a young …
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The juxtaposition of this text from James with Mark’s story of the healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman reveals a wicked sense of humor on someone’s part. The passage in James begins with an assertion of the fundamental incompatibility of faith in Christ, the Lord of Glory, with partiality in human relations. It then goes on …
Continue reading “God’s Choice (James 2:1-17; Mark 7:24-37)”
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"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and 1 will write it upon their hearts" [Jer. 31:32] Luther challenged the church to show the world God’s righteousness. Works of religious and political grandeur and examples …
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". . . This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men" Here is a text to try our modern Christian souls. It appears to be on a collision course with the best of our liberal values. God is up to …
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The other day someone told me about a friend who had been asked to preach in the church of one of the famous television preachers whom millions watch every Sunday. On the way from the airport, the guest received these instructions: “People worship with us in order to feel good about themselves. Therefore, don’t mention …
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George Macleod, founder of the Iona Community, said that in order to form community, people must be engaged in a "demanding common task." In his case the task was to rebuild the accommodation areas of Iona Abbey. The group that he led included people with considerable formal education (trainee ministers), who were used to working …
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As a child, I studied many different images of the Good Shepherd. I saw the official version every Sunday in the stained glass window above the altar at First Congregational Church in Tempe, Arizona. That shepherd was a tall, friendly-looking, 30-something man, fair of skin and eye with long, flowing, goldish-brown locks and soft hands. …
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One Saturday afternoon, my wife and I escaped to the movies. We had barely slipped into our seats and positioned the bucket of popcorn between us when a gaggle of teenagers jostled into the row behind us. They were having a great time together, noisily talking and teasing and laughing. During the previews, the conversation …
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For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all. [Rom. 11:32]. By what right did Paul presume to address the Christians of Rome in such universalistic terms? “Mercy upon all”? Had not the Lord Jesus himself taught the very converse when he warned that “many are called but few …
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When members of my family introduce someone, they always give that person an automatic promotion. If she’s a doctor, they will exaggerate, introducing her as a brilliant surgeon. A teacher’s aide becomes a full professor. I am told that I do the same thing, even after ten years of living in New England, the land …
Continue reading “Grand Introductions (Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42)”
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“Always and for everything giving thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” How is it humanly possible to give thanks for “everything”? Can anyone express gratitude for a disastrous accident? Is it even ethical to give thanks for the death of a neighbor we despise? Are we to thank …
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I shudder when I’m reminded that it is painful for someone with dark skin to hear that "God is light, and in God there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). Being legally blind, I know firsthand that to walk in the light (1 John 1:7) often hurts. I wear sunglasses both to darken …
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One June my family and I were spending time on the north shore of Galway Bay in the west of Ireland. It was mid-afternoon, and there was a mist on the wind. Our children were playing Frisbee on the shingle beach, and I was taking photographs. I remember pausing as I caught one them in …
Continue reading “Growing Pains (I Sam. 2:18-20; Ps. 148; Col. 3:12-17; Lk. 2:41-52)”
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I got into trouble once. Big trouble. I was enjoying myself at a barbecue supper with several clergy in a small northern Kentucky town. When we ran out of some food items, I volunteered to drive my MG — with the top down, of course — to find a grocery store. I was on my …
Continue reading “Guest List (Lk. 14:1, 7-14; Heb. 13:1-8, 15-16)”
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We are used to the imagery of God communicating by God’s word, and so we think of our responses to God as aural: we listen. And obedience (from obaudiens) can be translated as “intense hearing.” Yet how much of the religion of ancient Israel was a priestly religion of presence! We forget that one of …
Continue reading “Halo Effect (Is.60:1-6; Ps. 72:1-7, 10-14; Eph. 3:1-12; Matt. 2:1-12)”
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Jesus, turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children" [Luke 23:28]. When asked to rate their happiness level, the Irish turn out to be just about the happiest people in the Western world. The Republic of Ireland tops the happiness list, with the …
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Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he …
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We will have to deal with the question sooner or later, so we might as well get it over with: Where does the Gospel of Mark end? There are four possibilities. The ending with the least support among ancient Greek manuscripts of Mark is the one comprising 16:8 and a short summary statement. This "shorter …
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Easter morning is the defining place and moment of Christian space and time. It is the Christian Genesis: male and female in a garden, darkness becoming light. The first day. It is the Christian nemesis: death and despair displaced by life and hope. The last day. As Christians we come to church on Easter Day …
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They both were angry, and they had a right to be angry. Judy’s mother was chronically ill, and would be for the rest of her life. As an only child Judy felt responsible, and she did her duty, caring for her mother without assistance. She counted the cost all the way, exhausting people around her …
Continue reading “Healed, Not Cured (2 Kg. 5:1-14; Ps. 30; Mk. 1:40-45)”
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The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12) begin the body of material commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) , the first of five major sections of teachings within the Gospel of Matthew. Carefully structured, all five conclude with the formula "And when Jesus had finished all these sayings. It may or may not …
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“You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1: 19b). The vagaries of the calendar and the cycles of the moon bring in an early Lent and Easter this year, and …
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Our hearts may sing as we hear the glorious prophecy of Isaiah, as repeated in Matthew’s Gospel: "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." But as we listen to the epistle a nagging voice suggests that the Corinthians have been remarkably busy in their attempts to put that light out. On …
Continue reading “Hearts Sing (Is. 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9;1 Cor. 1:10-18; Matt. 4:12-23)”
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Throughout much of history, opium has been used as a narcotic to ease human suffering. In the Western world, however, opium has become a narcotic of mere escape, usually used by the rich or those who have abandoned life altogether in order to experience the drug. Followers of Jesus learn that the rich share an …
Continue reading “Heavenly Minded (Luke 18: 9-14; 2 Timothy 4; 6-8, 16-18)”
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Life is a long series of transitions. The healthy person accepts this, and deals with it so that life ultimately thrusts forward. Unhealthy people fight and put off, even deny, transitions. But changes come, whether we choose them or not: children are born; relationships change; jobs terminate; roofs leak; people die. No permission is sought; …
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Medieval mapmakers, with their limited knowledge of distant lands and uncharted seas, sometimes depicted dragons on the far edges of their maps. Hic sunt dracones ("Here be dragons!"), they warned. One map from 1430 has this text written above a ferocious creature: "Here also are huge men having horns four feet long, and there are …
Continue reading “Here be Dragons (Acts 11:1-18; Ps. 148; Rev.21:1-6; Jn. 13:31-35)”
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‘We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine.” The modern world has witnessed a once proud Christianity humiliatingly deprived of its former political clout and privilege and thus relieved of the temptation to abuse power. However, as evidence of the fact that Christianity has no …
Continue reading “Heresy, Diversity and Grace (Eph. 4:1-16)”
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From the time I was a little girl I have loved international airports. In short segments of time you encounter diverse and colorfully costumed people from all over the earth arriving and dispersing throughout a web of corridors and platforms and waiting areas. You hear conversations in dozens of languages as people hurry toward their …
Continue reading “Hitting the Road (1 Corinthians 12:4-13; Acts 2:1-11)”
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Picture the old man with the baby in his arms He stands chuckling with giddy joy, or perhaps he gazes with streaming tears on his cheeks, or is lost in transfixed wonder; in whatever way, he is so very happy. Then he says that this is enough now, he is ready to die. He has …
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Lent is about preparation. Forty days: time for catechumens to prepare for baptism. Time to be ready for what is to come at the Easter vigil. In Jesus’ time, preparation was needed, for baptism was quite an event. Imagine several hundred people striding down to the river to be baptized, all at one go. Now …
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Imagine the social degradation. Carrying one’s own instrument of death, struggling to maintain any dignity at all. Then propped up in gruesome form, practically naked, at a crossroads or other public place. Regarded as a criminal, exposed to insult and abuse from any who might fancy the cheap victory of a verbal volley or target …
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The religion of Israel is a great theater. Moses goes up on the mountain and the clouds close underneath him like curtains. He brings down the commandments, and the children of Israel are unimpressed. Solomon builds a huge temple. Inside, behind a great curtain, is the Holy of Holies, where the high priest, like Moses …
Continue reading “Holiness: Simplicity (Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21)”
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Isaiah and the Baptizer conspire to give us animal dreams in this dark season of Advent. The earlier prophet’s vision warms our hearts. Who among us hasn’t yearned for a world in which lambs could hang out with wolves and adders behave as though Mr. Rogers had taught them how to play with children? A …
Continue reading “Holy Fishes (Is.11;1-10; Rom. 15;4-13; Matt. 3:1-12)”
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They were no angels. Whatever else they did or didn’t do, or hoped to do, they hired strippers. Then prosecutor Mike Nifong charged them with rape, Duke University turned on the boys involved and the media feasted on what these white jocks gone wild had done. Along with many others, I hated them. In the …
Continue reading “Holy Hate (Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 23:33-43)”
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The texts for the third Sunday of Easter are not for the fainthearted. They are about pounding hearts, wounded hearts and burning hearts. And they invite us to encounter the living Christ in the heart of who we are. Kathleen Norris and others remind us that “to believe” is not a matter of the mind, …
Continue reading “Holy Heartburn (Acts 2:14a,36-41;Ps.116:1-3,10-17;I Per.1:17-23;Lk. 24:13-35)”
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Early on, even Jeremiah could have located himself somewhere within Frederick Buechner’s pithy essay on vocation in Wishful Thinking. "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet," says Buechner. Jeremiah would later recall for God that initial gladness: "Your words were found, and I …
Continue reading “Home Court Disadvantage (Jer. 1:4-10; 1 Cor. 13:1-13; Lk. 4:21-30)”
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It’s all grace my dear friend replied. For some reason, I was surprised at the simplicity and firmness of her answer. I’d asked how she was able to face the last stages of cancer with such peace, generosity and good humor. The complete absence of bitterness or resentment in her demeanor and words was striking. …
Continue reading “Homeward Bound (Jn. 1-110-18; Jer. 31:7-14)”
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The navy shaped my grandfather’s life. He was a retired navy officer when he died, so we held his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. We were greeted at the gates of Fort Myer by armed guards. As my family and I drove through the base, we noted the display of guns and armaments. Outside the …
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My wife is afraid of heights. She didn’t like flying out west, and she didn’t want to peer down into the Grand Canyon. I wonder how she would feel at the end of time, "caught up together with the saints in the air to meet the Lord." I know she’d prefer that this reunion happen …
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Southern women are great Marthas and proud of it. Having been raised in this culture, I know that supper in a southern kitchen is a wonder to behold. Those who have traditional southern hospitality refined to an art never sit. They hover. Plates are never allowed to go empty. Guests are continually asked if they …
Continue reading “Hospitality Theology (Gen. 18:1-10a; Col. 1:15-28; Lk. 10:38-42)”
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"Now God is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all are alive to God" (Luke 20:381). How do we live with dying? What hope does our Christian faith offer for the real anguish of death’? Most of us resent the thinned-out version of Christian hope, "He/she is happy in heaven." That …
Continue reading “How Do We Live with Dying? Job 19:23-27a, II Thess. 2:13-3:5, Luke 20:27-28)”
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The readings for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost confirm the ascetic ideal, the wisdom that says that we should be divested of this world and its pleasures. Clearly, if we curbed our appetite, or otherwise practiced self-control, we would be none the worse for wear. But the texts’ ascetic ideal also applies to the balance …
Continue reading “Human Folly on a Grand Scale (Amos 6:4; I Tim. 6:9)”
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Jesus speaks and acts in John’s Gospel, the people hear him at one level while he seeks to move them to a deeper level. When Jesus feeds the 5,000, for example, the crowd, stomachs filled, rushes to make him king. Jesus flees. God wants the hungry fed, but there is a deeper hunger and a …
Continue reading “Hungry For More (Ex. 16:2-4,9-15; Jn. 6:24-35)”
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Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing threats to slaughter the Lord’s disciples. He had gone to the high priest and asked for letters addressed to the synagogues at Damascus, that would authorize him to arrest and take to Jerusalem any followers of the Way, men or women, that he could find. Suddenly, while he was traveling …
Continue reading “I Am Jesus, Whom You Persecute (Acts 9:1-9)”
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Have you ever been in a conversation in which it seemed that you and another person were not talking about the same thing even though you were arguing about it strenuously? Something like that is going on in Mark. Jesus and the Pharisees are in conflict with one another but not necessarily about the same …
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Paul is making an unexpected visit to Athens. His proclamation of Christ crucified had angered the Jews at Thessalonica so much that they had followed him to Beroea to incite riots in the crowds there. Rather than risk Paul’s safety, the Beroean believers had sent him off to Athens. There, while he waits for his …
Continue reading “Idol Behavior (Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22)”
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Instead of inviting our friends, kinfolk or rich neighbors, we are to invite "the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind." Mission schools and hospitals should be run primarily for the poor and disadvantaged who cannot pay the fees. We are called to get past society’s balanced 50/50 arrangement. "If you love those who …
Continue reading “If You Give a Feast, Invite the Poor (Luke 14:7-14)”
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Imagine being brilliant–Massachusetts Institute of Technology kind of brilliant. You’ve aced the course work in electrical engineering and computer science and you’re ready to work as a Wall Street analyst. But there’s one test left, and it has absolutely nothing to do with electrical engineering or computer science. You have to swim 100 yards. That’s …
Continue reading “Imagine Being Brilliant (Genesis 2:15-17; Matthew 4:1-11)”
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As we approach the season of Advent, we find Ezekiel being outrageous in true prophetic style. If we pride ourselves on being spiritual seekers, Ezekiel insists that it is God who seeks us out and not the other way around. Can’t we prize the maturity of knowing who we are and of finding communities where …
Continue reading “Imagining Christ (Ezek. 34:11-16,20-24; Ps. 95:1-7a; Eph. 1:15-23; Mat. 25:31-46)”
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But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. [Mark 13:31] If we don’t even know what time it is, what do we know? How can Christians speak about the purpose of God — hence, in some way, God’s nature — …
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Whenever the text turns apocalyptic, as it does this week, there would seem to be only two choices: either take it literally and join the lucrative doomsday machine of late-night, splendidly coifed Christian psychics, or begin your best apologetic backpedaling — cheered on by Bishop John Spong. If you choose the first option, to be …
Continue reading “In Praise of the First Coming (Mark 13:1-8)”
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My wife and I have two Sons 12 and 14 and a standard-size refrigerator. Hence, we spend a lot of time at the grocery store. As I wait to pay for one day’s installment of food, I am invited to learn the full story about the semiprivate lives of numerous celebrities. If the number of …
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Jesus is reported to have said, "The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force" (Luke 16:16). This might also be read, "The law and the prophets reigned until John, but now we …
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Life is details — phones that keep ringing, email that has to be returned, computers that crash, copy machines that jam, and children who are sick when we need to be at work. We struggle with the details of bodies that don’t work as they should, with doctors, specialists, medical tests and pills. Our children …
Continue reading “It’s in the Details (Lk. 19:28-40; Ps. 118:1-2, 19-29)”
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What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor… (Hebrews 2:6,7) An incredible respect for life wove together the disparate humanity that worked the edges of …
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‘Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. my covenant which they …
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When I was in seminary, Doubting Thomas was my soul mate. Jesus kept “appearing ” to my fellow students within the rich stories of the Christian tradition. But like Thomas, I never seemed to be there when Jesus arrived. Why? Because the absurdity of the resurrection rumor had sent me away. I could not see …
Continue reading “Jesus Appears (Acts 2:14a,22-32;Ps.16;I Pet.1:3-9;John 20:19-31)”
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Matthew 14: 13-21 And when he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and he healed their sick. And when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the …
Continue reading “Jesus Had Compassion On Them (Matthew 14: 13-21)”
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Only a few of the 365 days in each year are associated with extraordinary events, but for those who experienced the events, the dates arouse great emotion. For Koreans, August 15 commemorates the restoration of the country’s independence after a Japanese occupation of 36 years. June 25 marks the outbreak of the Korean War. And …
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Jesus talks longer to the woman at the well than he does to anyone else in all the Gospels–longer than he talks to any of his disciples, longer than he talks to any of his accusers, longer than he talks to any of his own family. She is the first person he reveals himself …
Continue reading “Jesus Talks (Exodus 17:1-7; Romans, 5:1-11; John 4:5-42)”
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The Epistle to the Hebrews joins the Revelation to John as the literature most intimidating to readers of the New Testament. With the Revelation the reader must endure its terrible splendor; with Hebrews the reader must listen intently to the tightly woven arguments in what the writer calls a sermon. No question about it, the …
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John 15: 1-6 I am the true vine, my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear fruit. … I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in …
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The problem with any speech that one hears repeatedly is that a hardening of the ears sets in. That may be the case with the first portion of our lectionary reading containing the summary of the law: we have undoubtedly overheard it. There is something appealing about what Jesus does with the theology professors and …
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. . . . looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross [Heb. 12:2]. The teachings of Jesus confront us with painful tensions. For example, the Gospels report sayings that range from those breathtaking in their tenderness and compassion to others …
Continue reading “Jesus’ Death: A Way of Finding (Heb. 12:2)”
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A newspaper cartoon depicts two men tied to a post and surrounded by enemies. One says to the other, "Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh." While the apostle Paul doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d crack a joke or offer a sarcastic quip in a tight situation, he does share …
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Lent is a journey. It leads from recognition of the weakness and powerlessness before the forces of evil and sin to victory over those forces through the cross and empty tomb. The reading from 1 Corinthians focuses attention on the cross as the power of Christ: “For the word, of the cross is folly to …
Continue reading “Journey to the Cross (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)”
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For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born [Mark 14:21]. The specific reasons may differ from age to age, from nation to nation. We …
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On Larry King live the other night, a well-known Christian musician was telling his life story, and it was exactly the kind of story I prefer not to hear from the pulpit. As King peered at him through his owlish glasses, the musician told of being raised in a warm and loving Christian family and …
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I have a philosophy about life," a friend said recently. "The world would be a much better place if people took a moment to let people know about the positive impact they have had on others’ lives. Too much time is spent on negativity. The good in people simply isn’t recognized; too often it is …
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Because we know almost nothing about the wise men, our imaginations take wing. If we were brought up in the Christian faith, these characters have ridden across our minds and hearts ever since we were taken to our first Sunday school pageant. Even the most sophisticated children secretly envy those who have been selected to …
Continue reading “Kingly Presence (Is. 60:1-6; Ps. 72:1-7; 10-14; Eph. 3:1-12; Math. 2:1-12”
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These are some of the nicest, happiest verses in scripture, easy to read because we all agree that we should love one another. Sunday school teachers affirm the thought; countless potholders and pillows are embroidered with it. Jeffrey Moses, in a book called Oneness, offers Jewish, Christian and Buddhist texts in the hope of showing …
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I am often at a loss for words when people ask me what I think. To me, thinking–making clear and linear progress through my mental swamp–is drudgery that I perform only when it is necessary. But if someone says, "Tell me a story," I am in my element. Psalm 40 tells a familiar story: "I …
Continue reading “Lamb of God (Is. 49:1-7; Ps. 40:1-11; 1 Cor. 1:1-9; John 1:29-42)”
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People in Jesus’ time thought that illness arose from people’s sins. They thought this happened in a fairly immediate cause-and-effect relationship. And they had thought so for a long time. Many of the psalms, like Psalm 41, allude to the idea: Heal me, for I have sinned against you. Today we are more apt to …
Continue reading “Lame Excuse (Isaiah 43:18:25; Mark 2:1-12)”
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We are a nation of spiritual seekers. We are hungry to learn about the life of the spilt, although many of us hesitate to translate that hunger into institutional allegiance. The majority of us are “unchurched.” Others are drawn to “seekers’ churches.” Still others are exploring the life of the spirit within a denomination and …
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The life situation of the reader of a text provides a lens through which that text is read. Or, to change the metaphor, the life situation provides the magnet, which draws from a text that which most clearly addresses the reader. For the same reader the same text may, under different circumstances, console or correct …
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With fall education programs getting under way and Sunday school teachers beginning another year of teaching, it may be disconcerting to hear this reading from James: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." In this chapter James is …
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When I was a small boy in Ireland my parents would take us to our grandfather’s farm near Castlecomer in County Kilkenny. On the farm there was a hired man whose name was John Brennan. John lived in a thatched cottage about half a mile away. In the evening after the cows were milked, he …
Continue reading “Let it Be (Mic. 5:2-5a; Ps. 80:1-7; Heb. 10:5-10; Lk. 1:39-45 [46-55])”
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Back in 1994 TV viewers all over the world watched transfixed, as South Africa’s first democratically elected president took the oath of office. While a dignified Nelson Mandela addressed the heads of state, many viewers wondered about the man dressed in leopard skins, standing directly behind him with a little flag stuck quaintly in his …
Continue reading “Let the Imbongis Sing! (Ps. 96; Is. 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Lk. 2:1-20)”
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Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [Rom. 6:3]. Life is an uninterrupted succession of leave-takings and good-byes. Just when we begin to feel comfortable with our surroundings, someone or something dies, reminding us that, down here, nothing lasts. Sooner or later, …
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In a culture that is deeply ambivalent about personal sacrifice, and often equates it with co-dependency or some other form of emotional dysfunction, Jesus’ challenge to “carry the cross” is difficult to hear. But then it probably did not sound appealing to the folks following him 2,000 years ago either. In this passage from Luke, …
Continue reading “Life-and-Death Choices (Deut. 30:15-20; Ps. 1; Lk. 14:25-33)”
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When I was a hospital chaplain, the calls I dreaded most did not come from the emergency room, the psychiatric ward or even the morgue. They came from the pediatric floor, where little babies lay in cribs with bandages covering half their heads and sweet-faced children pushed IV poles down the hall. One day I …
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Lent carries in its bosom a seductive danger: excessive inwardness. The seduction is this: a season of prayer, repentance and preparation for Good Friday and Easter necessarily involves trips to the heart, but tarry there too long and repentance can stall out as melancholy. The danger is this: self-examination may spawn attempts at self-improvement, with …
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“God will forgive my sins,” quipped Heinrich Heine on his deathbed. “It’s his job.” How different are the viewpoints of Isaiah, Paul and Luke! They note an ongoing theological tension between the assurance of God’s kindness and the call to immediate repentance. Yes, God is merciful, not punishing as we deserve, not automatically correlating our …
Continue reading “Limited-Time Offer (Is. 55:1-9; 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Lk. 13:1-9)”
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Genesis 12: 1-8, Luke 9: 28-36 (The Transfiguration) Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter, John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white. And behold, two men talked with …
Continue reading “Listen to Him (Genesis 12: 1-8, Luke 9: 28-36)”
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Maybe it was time for Abram to move on. After all, he and his wife Sarai had been living in Ur for many years. Abram’s father had died, and Abram had lost his brother Haran to an untimely death. Moving on might do both him and Sarai some good. Yet we all know that in …
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“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.” The ancient Advent collect still echoes deep within my soul. When I was a child, …
Continue reading “Live Into Hope (Is. 2:1-5; Rom. 13:11-14; Matt. 24:36-44)”
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In the south side Chicago neighborhood where I grew up, if one of the men on the block found himself stymied by City Hall bureaucracy, he would talk to Louie. I was never quite sure what Louie did for a living. Unlike the other men in the neighborhood, he drove off each day in a …
Continue reading “Living by the Word (Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-31)”
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The problem with Matthew 15:21-28 lies in the portrait of Jesus as neither the Jesus we have come to know and love nor, if we are honest, a Jesus we particularly like. The optional verses in the lectionary (Matt. 15:10-20) may elicit Peter’s reaction: "Explain yourself, Jesus!" Critical to interpreting and preaching this passage, however, …
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All day long a landowner has been going into the marketplace to hire workers for his vineyard and now only one group remains. The landowner says to the workers, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They respond with one of the most painful lines in all of scripture: “Because no one has hired …
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The conversation at Caesarea Philippi is a defining moment for the synoptic Gospels, although only Matthew and Mark name it as the location for Peter’s confession, "You are the Messiah." For the Gospel narratives as post-Easter interpretations, reflections and perspectives, who Jesus is constitutes the most important question for those early communities that claimed belief …
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Like Long-Distance Swimmers, those of us who count our Sundays by the rhythm of the lectionary need to occasionally pop our heads out of the water and get our bearings. We know the month, the day and the liturgical date. We may also know where we are in our congregational programming, especially with regard to …
Continue reading “Living by the Word Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32”
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Like an artist sketching in broad strokes on a huge canvas, Paul in the first 11 chapters of Romans has traced with great intensity God’s patience and persistence at making peace with humanity. The strokes get broader, the colors ever more vivid, until Paul is himself overcome at what he sees. He steps back, exhilarated …
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The oneness of the church — one Lord, one faith, one baptism — is as integral to being a part of Christ’s body as receiving the sacrament of bread and wine. In Romans 14 Paul is writing to a broken body of people. The surface issues are about appropriate Christian eating practices, but the real …
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My wife and I have found a great remedy for those times when life seems overwhelmingly stressful, our worries mount, and our inner resources seem depleted. We consider the birds of the air. Specifically, we pop in a DVD titled Winged Migration, Jacques Perrin’s Oscar-nominated documentary that follows dozens of species of birds on their …
Continue reading “Living by The Word (1 Corinthians 4:1-5: Matthew 6:24-36)”
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Jesus is in distress. He’s still shaking the dust off his feet from that unhappy visit home when he learns that Herod has had his cousin John beheaded. Jesus is spent. He withdraws to a deserted place. No wonder the disciples want to shield him, urge him to send the crowds away. They too must …
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When Jesus tells a story, he compels us to look at holy things with new eyes, and he illustrates his stories with references to ordinary, homely things. If he were operating in the 21st century, I doubt that he would need a blackboard for complex mathematical formulas, or the arcane jargon of a modern expert–whether …
Continue reading “Living by the Word (Matthew (13:31-33, 44-49a)”
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The ex-con was finally heading home. He ignored the noisy college kids on the bus and stared out the window until, after a rest stop, a young woman sat down next to him and struck up a conversation. He told her that he’d been in prison for four years and that his wife hadn’t written …
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When I sit with the Washington Post and my morning coffee, I have a sense that I’m hovering on a threshold; like many Americans, I remember September 11 and feel as if I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. It often seems as if ours is the most anxious time in history, at least …
Continue reading “Living by the Word (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; Romans 8:12-25)”
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Walking on water is an iconic, superhero thing to do. In a mighty display of divine power, Jesus strolls across the Sea of Galilee and then stills a strong wind. No wonder the disciples are terrified by the ghostly apparition coming toward them. Ghosts, after all, are spirits without flesh-and-blood bodies. Physicist and theologian John …
Continue reading “Living by the Word (Rom.10:5-15; Matt. 14:22-33)”
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You may share an experience I often have: I enter a room where friends are engaged in a spirited conversation about someone and try to guess who it is that they are describing. If I succeed, it’s usually because they are referencing words or actions that I recognize as familiar. These words and actions form …
Continue reading “Living by the Word (Romans 4:13-25; Matthew: 9:9-13, 18-26)”
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In Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More, lord chancellor of England under Henry VIII, attempts to reassure his wife and daughter (who are rightly concerned for his safety) by pointing to himself with the words, "This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made." His martyrdom and that of many …
Continue reading “Living by the Word (Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8 -23)”
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It’s still dark on Easter morning as I join other worshipers for our annual sunrise service. We gather on a tree-studded hillside in a cemetery that overlooks a peaceful river. As the first shards of light glisten on silent waters, we sing and pray. Then a pastor stands and asks: "Do you reaffirm your renunciation …
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In January 1990, as Operation Desert Storm was lighting up the skies over Iraq. I was asked to preach on Romans 13. My Mennonite tradition has always had an uneasy relationship to Romans 13. Rather than try again to search for a way of reading it that would not subvert Jesus’ call to love the …
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Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord [Jer. 23:28]. Vatican II made important history when it acknowledged that other religions were not telling "dreams." Referring specifically to Hinduism and Buddhism, Vatican …
Continue reading “Living by the Word: Speak My Word Faithfully (Jer. 23:28)”
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In a culture that has made efficiency a moral requirement and credit-card purchasing a way of life, delays are frustrating. Instant messaging, fast food meals and express deliveries reinforce a sense that waiting for almost anything is a waste of our time and a poor use of our gifts and resources. Orienting our lives around …
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Hebrews 10: 11-18: For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins…. Lo, I have come to do thy will… And every priest stands at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice …
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A friend of mine recalls that her mother always sat sideways in her chair during meals. Whether the table was surrounded by family members or invited guests, she was poised for action. She’d jump up if she’d forgotten something in the kitchen, if someone wanted steak sauce rather than the ketchup that was on the …
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This parable in Matthew is a sister to the song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5. In both cases, God is the farmer who has provided generously so that the vineyard will be very fruitful. In Isaiah, the distress is over a lack of good fruit despite fine care of the vineyards. In Jesus’ story, …
Continue reading “Living y the Word Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46”
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A person’s final words are important. When they are out of character or trivial, we remember them with some embarrassment. Elvis Presley, for example, supposedly said, “I’m going to the bathroom to read.” Well-spoken words, on the other hand, provide a fitting conclusion to a life and encouragement for those who remain. This week’s lectionary …
Continue reading “Long Division (Acts 1:6-14 .John 17:1-11)”
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How do you say goodbye? It depends, I suppose, on the relationship — what it has grown to and what it will become. For Jesus, preparing to leave the close society of his disciples seems to have been a long process. Almost from the beginning he gently, or sometimes in exasperation, explained that the course …
Continue reading “Long Goodbye (John 17:20-26; Acts 16:16-34)”
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But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles [I Cor. 1:23] One of the dangers of being in church as often as I am is that it all starts to make sense. I speak of the Christian faith so casually and effortlessly that I begin to think, “Fine thing, …
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We cannot be fishers of men and women if in our hearts we are haters of them. This truth draws together the lectionary passages from Jonah and Mark. It also reveals a nonviolent ethic: love even your enemies; become fishers of them. We will not win people to our convictions if we despise them. Much …
Continue reading “Love’s Double Victory (Jn. 3:1-5, 10; Mk. 1:14-20)”
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Some time ago the New York Times ran this headline in its science section: “Before the Big Bang, There Was . . . What?” The article surveyed cosmologists, those who study the whole physical universe, or, as some of them believe, universes. Cosmologists generate a plethora of theories about how the world came to be, …
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A young rabbi found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did moved toward solving the impasse. Finally, in desperation, the …
Continue reading “Makeshift Communities (Is. 9:1-4; Ps. 27:1, 4-9;I Cor. 1:10-18; Matt. 4:12-23)”
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Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. . . So Abram went . . . [and] built there an altar [Schechem] to the Lord . . . and pitched his tent . . . and invoked the …
Continue reading “Marias Full of Grace (Gen. 12:1-4a; Mt. 17:1-9)”
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If Mark’s Gospel were a movie, this scene would make the perfect trailer. Without entirely giving away the ending, it summarizes all the major themes of Mark’s Gospel. In a nutshell, it offers everything that is quintessential Mark: the journey toward the cross, suffering and death, wrongheaded disciples, the reversal of power and Jesus’ reflection …
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Several years ago I was invited to preach on this gospel passage from Matthew at the National Cathedral on the Sunday designated to honor the state of Hawaii. I struggled with the subject of Jesus’ baptism, partly because baptism is not an easy concept to explain, and this story seemed strange indeed. Why would Jesus …
Continue reading “Marked for a Purpose (Is. 42:1-9; Acts 10:34-43; Matt. 3:13-17)”
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". . . they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" Let’s begin by admitting that …
Continue reading “Mary and the Body Snatchers (John 20:13b-15a)”
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What comes to mind at the mention of Mary, Jesus’ mother? Pale blue? Alabaster statues? An unnatural look of chaste perfection? Sneers about front-yard grottoes and dashboard figurines? In Mary in the New Testament (Fortress, 1978) , in which collaborating Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars examine what the churches and the New Testament have said …
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At Christmas, even the most Protestant among us can be drawn to the contemplation of Mary. It seems right to recall her humble courage, her receiving and carrying and giving birth, and her joy as she sang of the saving work of God. The old King James Version puts part of Mary’s doxology this way: …
Continue reading “Mary Says Yes (Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:47-55)”
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‘Do not be afraid, Mary . you will conceive in your womb and bear a son" (Luke 1:30-31]. But what did his birth mean for Mary — one woman among the many generations who had awaited this birth? So often we concentrate on the conception and the birth, and forget about the time in-between — …
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That Luke fashioned or preserved traditions regarding Mary was inspired, considering how infrequently she otherwise appears in the New Testament outside of John. Mark, of course, skips the birth of Jesus altogether, and Mark’s Jesus seems indifferent to his mother when she shows up with his brothers in chapter three. As for Matthew, his Mary …
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On the way out of my city I often pass a large self-storage center. Rows and rows of nondescript units are lined up like barracks at an army base. I often wonder what is inside those storage units: treasured heirlooms, vast collections of National Geographic, broken and tattered belongings that someone doesn’t want to give …
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There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile a person.” Or as Eugene Peterson translates it, “It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life.” I’m tempted to disagree. A few months ago I visited Senegal, West Africa. I spent the entire six-hour return flight from Dakar to Paris in the …
Continue reading “Matters of the Heart (Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23)”
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"How I have longed to eat this Passover with you before my death" [Luke 22:15]. Yes, they always said I questioned everything – too much for my own good, was the way they used to put it. Although, since that evening in the Upper Room when he offered me his hands and side, the nail …
Continue reading “Maundy Thursday: Thomas’s Testimony (Luke 22:15)”
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May God show kindness and bless us, and make his face shine on us. Then the earth will acknowledge your ways, and all nations your power to save. Let the nations praise you, God, let all the nations praise you. Let the nations rejoice and sing for joy, for you judge the world with justice, …
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An emphasis on the decision character of faith has a long and deep history in the American psyche going back to our Puritan and evangelical ancestors. From Jonathan Edwards to Charles Finney to Billy Sunday through Billy Graham and their successors, faith, as encountered in the idiom both of born-again revivalism and of religious "progressives," …
Continue reading “Measure of Faith (2 Tim. 1-14; Lk. 17; 5-10)”
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An emphasis on the decision character of faith has a long and deep history in the American psyche going back to our Puritan and evangelical ancestors. From Jonathan Edwards to Charles Finney to Billy Sunday through Billy Graham and their successors, faith, as encountered in the idiom both of born-again revivalism and of religious "progressives," …
Continue reading “Measure of Faith (2 Timothy 1-14; Luke 17; 5-10)”
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“Mercy” is the one expletive my grandmother Norris allowed herself, the all-purpose exclamation for times when she was too awestruck, befuddled or exasperated to say anything else. People do have a need for expletives — it may be as deep as our need for language itself — and during the 1960s, when my Bennington classmates …
Continue reading “Mercy, Me (Is. 40:1-11; 2 Pet. 3:8-15a; Mk. 1:1-8)”
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“I am not the Messiah” John the Baptist baptized Jesus. The synoptic Gospels all say so and the kerygma in Acts connects the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with John’s baptizing. But although Mark seems to find it quite right that Jesus of Nazareth should have been among those who heeded John’s preaching, the three …
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The "Midwife’s Tale" told in Exodus begins on an ominous note. There arose a new king over Egypt, we are told, one who did not know Joseph. That is to say, not only did the king not know Joseph, he did not know the God who had sent Joseph to Egypt so that Joseph might …
Continue reading “Midwife’s Tale (Exodus 1:8-210; Matthew 16:13-20)”
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There is an odd reticence about the healings in the lessons for this Sunday — there’s an expectation of big-bang pyrotechnics, followed by a matter-of-factness in the healings that seems to disappoint. The haughty Naaman is downright offended by the simplicity of Elisha’s prescription for curing his leprosy. I thought he would surely come out …
Continue reading “Miracle Market (2 Kings 5:1-14, Mark 1:40-45)”
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After the remarkable healing of a woman who had suffered for 12 years from hemorrhages and after the raising of the dead child of Jairus, Jesus goes home to Nazareth accompanied by his disciples. He teaches in the synagogue on the sabbath, and the people are amazed both at his teaching and at the murmured …
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“For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” Whenever Christians seriously grapple with the question of who should be included as full and equal partners in the commonwealth of the God and Father of Jesus Christ, Paul’s words about Christ having “broken down …
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Hans Nielsen Hauge, often called the John Wesley of Norway, changed Norway much as Wesley changed England. Hauge was born in 1776 to prosperous peasants in eastern Norway. He was a devout young man whose main sources of study were his Bible, his catechism and his hymnbook, and he read these many times over. On …
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Imagine being Judas and having your name be come synonymous through the ages, in every country on earth, with an act of treachery. That would be heavy wouldn’t it? Years ago, when my wife and I saw Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar on a London stage, the cast came down …
Continue reading “Missing the Resurrection (Acts 1:15-17, 22-26; Ps. 1; 1 John 5:9-13; Jn. 17:6-19)”
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Jesus gets himself out of the Sadducees’ trap neatly by stating that in the resurrection there will be neither giving nor taking in marriage. I wish he had also made it much clearer to that bunch of jerks that women, even their own wives, were not the property of their husbands, nor were they put …
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The vocation of the church is to celebrate the politics of love. That may sound curious. What does the gentle, touching gift of love have to do with the ugly, underhand machinations of politics? Most people think of politics as a regrettable but necessary business. Necessary, because we live in a world of scarce resources, …
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The church of my youth majored in a miserly view of God’s grace. Its message was grim. Life had no edge, no elegance and no joy, but was only a bitter temporal existence largely limited to preparations for the sweet hereafter. Our bleak church building reflected the theology: it was aptly situated in the Pacific …
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How do you prove that your uncle killed your father on his way to seizing both a crown and a sister-in-law for himself? Hamlet decides that a bit of drama called “The Mouse-trap” might be the way to “catch the conscience of the king”: I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have …
Continue reading “Mousetraps (2 Sam. 11:26-12:10, 13-15; Lk.7:36-8:3)”
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Samuel, the Billy Graham of his day, was adviser to the political leader Saul, the Pete Rose of ancient Israel. Samuel anointed Saul to be the first king of Israel. But soon (to quote James Thurber), “confusion got its foot in the door” and went through the entire “symptom.” Samuel observed Saul disobeying the explicit …
Continue reading “Move On (I Sam. 16:1-13; Ps.23; Eph. 5:8-14;John 9:1-41)”
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When I became a seminary administrator, a colleague at another school gave me this advice: “People always act from self-interest. When you approach them with a plan, they’ll invariably ask themselves, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Figure out the answer to that before you propose anything, and approach issues accordingly.” Pared to its core, it …
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My erstwhile human encounters with the divine word are fraught with irony. The Bible is full of examples: Balaam’s talking ass; the promise of a patriarchal heir so long overdue that the child is named for the ensuing hilarity; the virtuous foreign woman deemed to be worth seven times the family-redeeming child she bears for …
Continue reading “Mutant Ministry (Jonah 3;1-5; I Cor. 7:29-31; Ps. 62-5-12)”
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Traditional Christian appropriation of the Hebrew scriptures often flattens them. Stories become precursors of later New Testament events rather than genuine events in themselves. Vivid multidimensional characters become mere prefigurations instead of figures in their own right, and complex narrative situations are reduced to a single theological point. This is due in part to the …
Continue reading “Namaan‘s No-nonsense Cure (2 Kings 5: 1-14)”
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Vacation time grips the imagination of Westerners. In Britain, it is now possible to buy an airline ticket on the Internet for a few pounds, then land in a European city for a "quick break’ boosted by the elixir of novelty and the thrill of just being able to do it. A different language, a …
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The Apostle Paul understands that there is no inherent conflict between the personal and communal aspects of faith. No human being is born an orphan. We are all born into a family. The Bantus of South Africa say, Umuntu, ngamuntu, ngabantu — a person is a person because of other persons. We are born into …
Continue reading “Naming and the Act of Faith (II Tim. 1:5)”
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Rejoice, all who prepare weekly sermons. This is the year that Luke tells the story of Jesus’ baptism. Luke makes less of repentance as the basis or baptism than do the other two synoptic writers; in fact, the word “baptism” occurs only twice in Luke’s third chapter, and is not even included in this Sunday’s …
Continue reading “Naming Names (Is. 43:1-7; Lk. 3:15-17, 21-22)”
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Early on in my lectionary study and preaching I learned to take the assigned limits of the biblical passages as suggestive rather than prescriptive. I found occasionally that assigned passages began too late or ended too soon for the movement of the pericope, and once in a while odd excisions were made right in the …
Continue reading “New and Old Together (Gen. 1:1-5; Mk. 1:4-11)”
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Matthew’s Jesus has been teaching the disciples that the kingdom of heaven works not as the world works, but as a new way to live based in forgiveness. Now for the parable, which illustrates almost every point of the discourse that preceded it. What’s surprising to me is how thoroughly the parable teaches the lesson: …
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As World War II was ending, my uncle was about to be discharged from the Royal Navy. He decided to enjoy an evening out, and bought a ticket to see a play in London. It was opening night of a new show. He told me that he was not quite sure what the show was …
Continue reading “Night Music (Zeph. 3:14-20; Is. 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18)”
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Isaiah faced a challenge. How was he to awaken an exiled community from the lethargy of despair? The people’s confidence had been shattered. Their entire world view was drained of its mimetic properties. Former glories lay in ruins. Now the people lived in the land of the dreaded enemy, reciting litanies of lamentation while ghouls …
Continue reading “No Comparison (Is. 49:21-31; Ps. 147:1-11)”
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In the poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” Wendell Berry’s mad farmer warns against the love of “the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay,” a life which makes one “afraid to know your neighbors and to die.” Instead, the mad farmer exhorts us, “Every day do something that won’t compute. Love the …
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Keeping score and getting even — that’s what enemies do. Time after time the Tutsis and then the Hutus have waited their turn to get even with each other in Rwanda. In the last outbreak of violence, loyalty to tribe even outweighed allegiance to religious vows for some clergy. Sacred sites in Jerusalem separate rather …
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Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. Dark. First light. Dawn. A few minutes of extraordinary encounter. This scene at the tomb of Jesus bestows a supreme gift upon the beloved of God. Time and place and character unfold …
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I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, No turning back, no turning back. When my friends and I sang this song at church camp, we sang sincerely, often teary- eyed, seated on the ground with the cross illumined by candlelight in front of us. …
Continue reading “No Turning Back (Ps 27; Phil 3:17-4:1; Lk 13:31-35)”
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In Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus there is no wiggle room. Deeds are done and lives led, and there are consequences for each of the three characters — the rich man, Lazarus and Father Abraham. No matter what each of them wishes, desires or hopes, the matter is finished. It turns out …
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Not Through the Law We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works …
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The terminus of the Lenten journey is Easter, and Christians celebrate it with triumphant joy. In the Eighth Ode of the Eastern Orthodox Paschal Canon, the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ is exalted: “This is the chosen holy day, the first of all Sabbaths, their queen and sovereign; the feast of feasts and festival …
Continue reading “Now What? (Acts 4:32-35; Ps.133; 1 Jn.1:1-2:2; Jn. 20:19-31)”
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Over the past weeks, the lectionary texts have presented various puzzles to me, and I have been thinking half aloud in this column about what it might mean to "live by the Word" when the Word is flung at us in fragments. These three texts require us to juggle words that address a common issue …
Continue reading “Obedience in Context (Ezek.33:7-9; Rom.13:1-10; Mt.18:15-20)”
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Acts 26: 9-20; Philippians 3: 3-14 The story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is told by Luke in three places in the Acts of the Apostles — in chapters nine, twenty two and twenty six. Philippians chapter three is a piece of Paul’s autobiography where he tells what the encounter with the …
Continue reading “Obedience to the Heavenly Vision (Acts 26: 9-20; Philippians 3: 3-14)”
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Matthew is not the first one to imagine three rich wise guys from the East coming to Jerusalem. His story line and plot come from Isaiah 60, a poem recited to Jews in Jerusalem about 580 B.C.E. These Jews had been in exile in Iraq for a couple of generations and had come back to …
Continue reading “Off By Nine Miles (Isaiah 60:1-7; Matthew 2:1-12)”
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What did they expect when they set off with Jesus that afternoon? An intimate conversation among the four of them? A chance to talk Jesus out of that strange, scary stuff he had been saying about suffering and dying, about saving or losing their lives? Of course, whatever they expected, they got much more than …
Continue reading “Off the Mountain (Ex. 34:29-35; Ps. 99; 2 Cor. 3:12-4:2; Lk. 9:28-43)”
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In a story that is unique to Luke, Jesus heals a nameless woman by giving her the freedom to unbend and stand up straight after she has lived for years in crippling bondage. The woman has not asked to be healed. She simply finds herself in Jesus’ presence — and that leads to healing and …
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By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son . . . [Heb. 11:17]. The film that my wife and I decided to show was the dramatization of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Afterwards, my wife would …
Continue reading “On a Wild and Windy Mountain (Heb. 11:17)”
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For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many [Mark 10:45]. "The issue," said one, "is survival of our civilization, our whole world, even. If we don’t do something about nuclear proliferation and do it now, civilization as we know …
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While making nursing home and hospital calls one day, I visited several people who were on oxygen. A slim green hose ran from a machine to each person’s nostrils, piping in pure air to make his or her breathing easier. In each instance we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together in preparation for Holy Communion, our …
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Isaiah knew his congregation. His word from the Lord spoke into the chaos and confusion of a people who had suffered not only a disruption of life, but also a disrupted understanding of God. Their cherished expectations of what it meant to be the covenant people had crumbled along with the destruction of Jerusalem. God …
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"The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Like a starter’s pistol, this brief first verse rings out and Mark’s narrative is off and running. We may take the chain of phrases in this verb-less sentence simply as a title, the announcement of what follows — the title and …
Continue reading “On Your Mark (Mk 1:1-8, 2 Peter 3:8-15, Is.40:1-11, Ps. 5:1-2, 8-13)”
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If I could tell when the end times were on their way by the number of wars, famines, earthquakes and plagues that are afflicting our world, I’d say, "Wow! Here they come!" The Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America — you name it, atrocities are taking place. Even in the United States of America, the …
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My favorite Christmas book is The Donkey’s Dream, which is about the journey Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem. Meant for young children, Barbara Helen Berger’s story is a brilliant and subtle work of theology. Or perhaps antitheology, as it allows simple images to tell us more than words can convey about what the incarnation …
Continue reading “Open Paths (2 Sam. 7:1-11, 16; Lk. 1:47-55; Lk. 1:26-88)”
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People who introduce themselves as bearing a message from God do not commend themselves to us easily if we do turn an ear to them out of curiosity, or perhaps out of an amused and sometimes horrified fascination, they tend to wear out their welcome quickly. We have learned only too well that such self-styled …
Continue reading “Opening Out (Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 1:68-79; Phil. 1:3-11)”
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The relationship of the church to Israel and of Christians to Jews has the character of a sibling rivalry gone disastrously awry. The belief that Christians have "superseded" Israel as the chosen of God — that we have replaced the Jews as the apple of God’s eye, that we are the singular recipients of God’s …
Continue reading “Our Jewish Problem (Genesis 32:22-30; Romans 9:1-5)”
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“We are now seen by the world as having joined the ranks of those who know poverty in a way we have not experienced it ever before. There have been wars, depressions and tragedies of major proportions, but this one [September11] somehow is different. This time the blow has staggered us. . . . We …
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These readings invite reflection on the puzzling proposition that God encountered in the world. We may put it differently or even mean different things by it, but an essential part of Christianity is that the truth is not to be found in denying or escaping the arena of natural and historical activity, but within it. …
Continue reading “Participating in Revelation (I Kg.19:9-18; Rom.9:1-5; Mt.14:22-33)”
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Tables spread with mouth-watering morsels, guests gathered in the perfect ambiance, lots of noise, laughter and fun. We know a party when we see one. But we also know that not all parties are the same. Like the towels in the guest bathroom that are there to be admired but never touched, some parties focus …
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When my daughter Katherine was 16, she and her friends decided to put on a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. The parents of the actors gathered in a neighbor’s living room for the performance. My wife and I were impressed by our amateur thespians. We were also impressed with the play itself — that is, …
Continue reading “Paschal Light (Acts 10:34-43; Cor. 15:1-11; Jn. 20:1-18 or Mk. 16:1-8)”
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In this summer’s blockbuster movie Bruce Almighty, a television newsman is given a set of divine powers, including the capacity to perform such miracles as the parting of a bowl of tomato soup, à la Moses’ parting of the Red Sea. When God wants to communicate with Bruce, God displays a telephone number on Bruce’s …
Continue reading “Paul Almighty (2 Cor. 12:2-10, Mk. 6:1-13)”
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The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world . . . yet the world knew him not. . . But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God [John 1:9-13]. In contrast to Matthew and Luke, …
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Born in the vast mountain ranges of British Columbia, the Fraser River floods southward to its rendezvous with the Pacific. At one stage of that long journey the mountains gather themselves to form a deep narrow canyon through which the Fraser must pass. It does so in a thunderous flood, gouging an almost 200-foot deep …
Continue reading “Pent-Up Power (Jer. 33:14-16, Ps. 25:1-10, 1 Thess. 3:9-13, Lk. 21:25-36.)”
Article
. . . the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now . . . but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words . . . In Romans 8, St. Paul’s witness leads into the mysterious depths of the Paraclete’s ceaseless intercession for the church and all creation. Like …
Article
Not many years ago there appeared in the spacious, and commonly specious, realm of how-to books one titled Pray Your Weight Away! I didn’t read it, but sometimes a book’s title tells everything one needs to know about both its author and its contents. A book titled Pray Your Weight Away! can be nothing other …
Continue reading “Petitionary Prayer Reconsidered (Phil. 1:6)”
Article
I grew up in an era before video, Veggie Tales or Bible-based computer games. I was raised, at least in terms of religious education, on the flannel graph. To this day, although I know that the scriptures are peopled with characters of texture and nuance, I think Bible people and see pastel paper figures pressed …
Article
One of the disadvantages of being both a Lutheran and an academician is that you hear so few good conversion stories. The weight of my tradition identifies regeneration with the work of God in baptism. Those who tell their conversion stories with great gusto or whose spiritual c.v. runs on for pages (or hours) are …
Continue reading “Pick it up, Read it. (Ps. 121;Gen. 12:1-4a; Rom. 4:1-5,13-17; John 3:1-l7)”
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"Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When Jesus was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he …
Article
The prophet Amos warned the people that their shallow piety would not prepare them for the new life they believed God would bring. God finds no pleasure in their feasts, solemn assemblies, burnt offerings or peace offerings. Their pious acts are of no avail, for God’s pleasure is in justice that must "roll down like …
Continue reading “Piety and Preparation for New Life (Am.5:18-24; I Th.4:13-18; Mt. 25:1-13.)”
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Friedrich Nietzsche once remarked that "Plato was a bore," but this snooty remark merely confirms the madman’s madness.’ Alfred North Whitehead concluded, boring or not, that "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." In the voice of his master Socrates, Plato bestowed …
Article
As I was putting our nine-year-old son to bed, I bent down to kiss him goodnight. He reached up, pulled my face toward his, and gave me seven kisses — four down and three across — on my forehead. Then he looked me in the eye and said, “Mom, you are blessed.” “Did you realize …
Article
In Psalm 29, the writer proclaims with majestic confidence that God is greater and stronger than every form of chaos, and by implication, than every idol through which we imagine we can control the manifestations of chaos. God is victorious over the wildness of water, storms and wind. Even mountains and trees appear unstable in …
Continue reading “Power and Delight (Jn. 1:43-51; I Sam. 3:1-10)”
Article
As long as the ascension is in any way related to upward movement (like an elevator going to the clouds), I am and will continue to be unmoved. The vertical directional imagery just doesn’t do it for me. I am not even moved to argue about whether or not “it” happened. The doctrine of the …
Article
The closest I get to the kind of religious experience the apostle Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 12 is the occasional Sunday when the music and the congregation merge in worship that is unrestrained praise. I especially enjoy communion, since the Eucharist itself is designed to anticipate heaven. With our sins confessed and forgiven, peace …
Article
Ahaz, Paul and Joseph were three men up against the inscrutability of God. One was a king whose rebellion exhausted God and led him to the brink of disaster and whose heart shook like a tree in the wind. One was a zealous Jew whose fidelity to the God of his ancestors made him a …
Continue reading “Practicing Fidelity (Ps. 80:1-7; Is 7:10-17; Rom 1:1-7; Matt. 1:18-25)”
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“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness: for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). I was raised in a middle-class, suburban family for whom religion, like sex, was a taboo topic. My Uncle Paul, a monastic …
Continue reading “Pray as You Can (Rom. 8:26-39; Matt. 13:31-33, 44-52)”
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Ephesians 1: 9-10 Throughout his life and ministry, Jesus witnessed the unifying love of God for all: Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, male and female, the righteous and the sinner. The Gospel was a simple message about the unity of all; it was a message of reconciliation. The writer of the epistle to the …
Continue reading “Prayer for Christian Unity (Ephesians 1: 9-10)”
Article
Who was Jesus? The answer to this question has inspired but also divided Christianity since the beginning. Christians must raise and answer the question as to the meaning of Jesus’ lordship. A christological understanding cannot be evaded in the name of some anti-intellectual harmony, and yet whenever it is raised, brothers and sisters in Christ …
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I stood in the small hallway just outside of the sanctuary, nervously jogging from foot to foot as I strained to see through the crack between the doors into the church. Even though it was a sweltering August day, my hands were ice cold and my heart was pounding so hard I thought I would …
Book Chapter
This book represents a Course of ‘open lectures’ given under the auspices of the Divinity Faculty of the University of Cambridge. The text is partly based on shorthand notes taken by hearers of the lectures, among whom I am particularly indebted to Miss M. Buchanan. Both the substance of the lectures and the general arrangement …
Article
Isaiah 40: 1-11, Mark: 1:1-8: Prepare the way for the Lord; clear a straight path for him. This is the season of Advent. Advent means coming or arrival, especially the arrival of someone who is expected. The readings for today remind us of two things: • First, the Advent season is the time when we …
Continue reading “Prepare The Way of the Lord (Isaiah 40: 1-11, Mark: 1:1-8)”
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In the mid-1980s I attended a church that still honored "Money Sunday," a practice begun in the 1950s. Once a year members of the congregation gathered to make financial pledges to support missions efforts. As the pledges were collected, the minister would read the amounts aloud from the pulpit: "Here’s one for $50…. Here’s another …
Continue reading “Pressed into Service (2 Corinthians 8:7-15)”
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How is the Presence working on us? Once again the liturgy gives us three different prods into life. As the sound of portentous thunder begins to diminish, we are being trained to perceive a shape to the One who comes, a shape that is different from the one that our fantasies and our fears have …
Continue reading “Prodded to Life (Is. 11:1-10; Ps. 72:1-7, 18-19; Rom. 15:4-13; Matt. 3:1-12)”
Article
Recently several pastors and seminary students told me that they will do “whatever it takes . . . to be effective in ministry . . . to turn their church around . . . to work for the kingdom.” While moved by their commitment, I worry about the moral danger they are courting and their …
Continue reading “Profit and Loss (Amos 8:4-7; Luke 16:1-13)”
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“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” As a child, these were the only authentic words of promise. Grossing the heart symbolized sincerity. Hoping to die and being willing to stick a needle in one’s eye indicated that one was willing to suffer excruciating physical pain if one’s promise lacked …
Article
Kurt vonnegut, the renowned writer and self-avowed humanist, once said that his epitaph should read, "The only proof he ever needed of the existence of God was music." I wonder if Vonnegut had been listening to Franz Jackson; hearing Jackson on the saxophone would inspire such a statement. Although not everyone has heard of Jackson, …
Continue reading “Proof of God (Matt. 17:1-9; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Ex. 24:12-18)”
Article
Even if we’ve set out on the Lenten pilgrimage on Ash Wednesday and taken every step in penitence and prayer, we are still not prepared for the arrival. Neither were those who joined Jesus in Galilee and made their way up to Jerusalem. For many it was an annual pilgrimage, this Passover. Others, having to …
Article
For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. . . . therefore, as it is written. “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord” [I Cor. 1:26, 31]. Text: When Paul wrote these words, he was obviously addressing …
Article
Two themes dominate these Epistle and Gospel readings: faith and works. These inevitably lead to a third theme — repentance. All are important in the spiritual reorientation fostered by our observance of Lent. Unlike the theological controversies of past generations, these two passages serve not to contrast faith and works but to define and order …
Continue reading “Provoked to Repentance (Eph. 2:1-10; Jn. 3:14-21)”
Article
One of the things I love about the liturgical life of the church is the way that the Holy Spirit, quietly and gently, works on us. Through the texts and prayers set out each year in the lectionary the Spirit draws us ever more fully into the Presence. If we read the texts in a …
Article
On Christmas Day we join choirs of angels and raise the strains of "Joy to the World!" Our children sing sweetly of the, little Lord Jesus so peacefully asleep on the hay that he doesn’t cry out when animals wake him with off-key parts to the lullaby. But then the music changes drastically. We hear …
Article
The water flows cleanly here, just a few miles from the source of the Hudson River, deep in the Adirondack Mountains. The big puffs of foam that form on the surface of the water aren’t evidence of agricultural runoff, but rather the result of rainwater leeching through the forest floor. One early summer morning, as …
Continue reading “Rare Sightings (Is. 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matt. 3:13-17)”
Article
I have absolutely nothing new to say about the 23rd Psalm or the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, and most readers have little need to rehash what they’ve already learned. What I don’t know much about, and what many of us fear to fully and faithfully confront, is the reading from Acts. In …
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Book Review Romans: A Commentary. By Robert Jewett. (Fortress), 1,250 pp. Those paying the $90 price for this commentary in the distinguished Hermenia series can scarcely complain that the book was lightly tossed off. It includes 70 pages of front matter (such as bibliography), 125 pages of back matter (indices and the like) and over …
Article
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (Matthew 1:23). We are on the very brink of the nativity. Our sense of the power of the One coming in has been stretched, challenged and recast over the past three weeks. Now the reality of that power begins …
Continue reading “Reading the Signs (Is. 7:10-16; Ps. 80:1-7, 17-19; Rom. 1:1-7; Matt. 1:18-25)”
Article
Luke does not write for a Christian century. He does not count time from the birth of Jesus. Instead, he reckons the years from the advent of Tiberius as emperor. It was, Luke tells us, in the 15th year of this Caesar’s reign that "the word of God came. Under great Tiberius’s judgment seat sat …
Article
I have a friend who creatively blends his ethnic and religious heritage. He is a black man with an Afrocentric consciousness and also a committed Christian. His Afrocentric commitment does not nullify his belief in Jesus, while his Christian commitment does not abolish his ethnic awareness and pride. I am always intrigued by the greeting …
Article
I once lived in a village in Germany that lay at the foot of a mountain covered in deep forest. A narrow farm separated the houses from the forest, and a cemetery occupied a piece of land part way up the mountain. Sometimes on my daily walks I stopped at the cemetery. It was the …
Article
Not far from where I live is a geological oddity. Stone Mountain is a bald and rounded mass of granite a mile and a half long and nearly a thousand feet high. Eons ago, molten rock pushed up from the earth’s core to the surface, then bubbled out and hardened into a monolith. Given the …
Article
What is the most popular Christmas song? One way to determine that is to consult the Muzak Holiday Channel and find the song that has the most versions available. If that’s a fair way to deal with this question, then the answer would be "The Christmas Song," most often sung by either Nat King Cole …
Continue reading “Refiner’s Fire (Zep. 3:14-20; Is. 12:2-6; Phil. 4:4-7; Lk. 3:7-18)”
Article
Rarely are cemeteries as peaceful as they seem. My boyhood friends visited them by night to consult with spirits–86-proof spirits, as I recall. Sometimes we’d glimpse young couples having soulful, breathy talks among the tombstones. The Mount of Olives, Jerusalem’s ancient cemetery, hummed with political conversation when Passover pilgrims spent the night there. The prophet …
Continue reading “Reflections on the Lectionary (Col. 3:1-4; Matt. 28:1-10)”
Article
The one who voices Psalm 51 is on the floor before God, utterly ashamed and as dust before glory: “My sin is ever before me.” The symptoms of sin are gradually displaced by the greater reality of God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned.” The speaker does not look outside for an oppressor to …
Article
The results of my efforts at a prophetic ministry have been mixed. I became a parish minister at the time when Barry Goldwater was challenging Lyndon Johnson for the presidency. The Democrats ran commercials that imagined an electoral victory by the warmongering Goldwater, then showed the world exploding. Seeing an opportunity to be involved in …
Continue reading “Reluctant Prophet (Lk. 4:14-21; 1 Cor. 12:12-31a)”
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We have forgotten who we are. We have sought only our own security, we have exploited simply for our own ends, we have distorted our knowledge, we have abused our power." So reads the proclamation of the UN. Environmental Sabbath Program. We have forgotten who we are. And who are we? According to Psalm 8, …
Article
Last week my daughter came home from school with an assignment to write a poem for her Spanish class. "I need an oxymoron for ‘hope,"’ she announced. I sifted through my mental catalog of silly oxymorons: army intelligence, feminist humor, adolescent charm. We talked about her assignment and I lamely offered her the idea of …
Continue reading “Remorse and Hope (Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21)”
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Justification by grace through faith has been a perennial theme throughout the history of the people of God. St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans gives it classical articulation in the Christian Bible: “For all alike have sinned, and are deprived of the divine glory, and all are justified by God’s free grace alone, through God’s …
Article
Two dominant themes weave through these readings. The first is the permanent need for repentance. The second is obedience: Christ’s obedience to his heavenly Father and the Christian’s obedience to Christ. Neither repentance nor obedience is very high on the American scale of values. A culture that exalts individualism, self-affirmation, independence and assertiveness has a …
Continue reading “Repent, Then Obey (Jer. 31:31-34; Ps.; 51:1-12; Ps. 119:9-16; Heb. 5:5-10)”
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The birth of Jesus calls our attention to God’s tradition of selecting representatives and partners from lowly places. During Advent we naturally focus upon Jesus as such a representative, and we sometimes forget that Jesus’ birth began with a humble woman. Mary was selected by God as a partner for producing the divine child that …
Continue reading “Representatives and Partners (2 Sam.7:8-16; Lk.1:26-38)”
Article
When the promising young Hebrews were dragged into exile in Babylon, they were not kept in prisons or even camps. They were free to marry, build homes, plant crops and exchange goods. Some became quite wealthy. They were also free to assemble, elect leaders and worship. But the Hebrews had a hard time worshiping in …
Continue reading “Resurrected Hopes (Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11)”
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All of the Spirit’s labor–the pruning of our imagination, the background work on our expectations–comes to fruition on Christmas Day, when we are brought into the Presence. The virgin who for nine months has been weaving the veil of the temple out of the material of her own body sits in stupefied and exhausted silence. …
Continue reading “Risk and Fulfillment (Is. 63:7-9; Ps. 148; Heb.2:10-18; Matt. 2:13-23)”
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In The Fragility of Goodness, author Martha Nussbaum writes, "The peculiar beauty of human excellence just is its vulnerability." Goodness is fragile and its vulnerability is part of its beauty. But in several of these scripture texts, it is not the fragility of goodness that stands out but the sturdiness of righteousness. The psalmist proclaims …
Continue reading “Risky Business (Prov. 25:6-7; Ps. 112; Heb. 13:1-8, 15-16; Lk. 14:1, 7-14)”
Article
The storyteller weaves it all together — an unknown traveler named Cleopas and his companion; the resurrected Jesus, who is present but in an unrecognized, mysterious fashion; the travelers’ sudden recognition of Jesus; and his sudden disappearance. I have always loved the story but have never understood why this particular resurrection appearance is so much …
Article
Of all the questions in scripture, the single most poignant one may be recorded in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus has just finished giving what is regarded as one of his difficult sayings (though a friend once asked which of Jesus’ sayings is not difficult). This one spoke of the need …
Continue reading “Roll Call (Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69)”
Article
Not long before the onset of the cancer that finally killed him, King Hussein of Jordan undertook a small mission. He paid a personal visit to the families of some Israelis who had been killed in an Arab terrorist bombing. There was no talk of money or reparations; instead, the king quietly sat with the mourners …
Article
While researching the spiritual songs of African-American slaves I was surprised to come upon a line that commanded: "When you get to heaven, rub poor lil’ Judas’s head." Most Christian teaching casts Judas into hell as an unforgiven sinner. Never had I heard a kind word about Judas. What is going on here? Is this …
Continue reading “Rub Poor Lil’ Judas’s Head (Revelation 21:10-11; 22:5; Is. 26:21)”
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Evening came at last. All day Jesus had taught the large crowds, using parables as bridges to minds and hearts. His pulpit was a boat, providing a way to connect with the throngs without getting crushed. But as darkness was about to overtake the light, he told the disciples he wanted to go to the …
Article
It always breaks my heart a little when an elderly member of my congregation dies after decades of service and faithfulness. It breaks my heart a little more when only a handful of members attend the funeral of a shut-in. But on the Day of All Saints the names of these people who have passed …
Article
For well over a thousand years November 1, or All Saints Day, has been marked in red on the Christian calendar. The meaning behind the celebration speaks to our time, especially when distinguishing between saints and celebrities, and remembering Karl Barth’s word about reading the Bible with the daily newspaper in hand. The latter tells …
Article
Matthew 5:13-16: You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? … You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid… Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and …
Article
Before my children were able to read they knew several stories by heart. The stories were picture book favorites that we read to them again and again. When I dared to skip a page or change a word, they would protest, "Mom! That’s not what it says. Read it right." The conversion of Saul is …
Article
John begins the Easter story with the words, "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark. . ." This is always how our discovery of the risen Christ begins — darkness. While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to a tomb because earlier in the week Jesus had been …
Article
How is a church like a sheepfold? Both are filled with funny-smelling creatures that will follow just about anyone just about anywhere . . . Why does a pastor tend a flock? To fleece ‘em. . . Is it just me, or is there more than a little bit of tension in the way we …
Continue reading “Savior Like a Shepherd (Ps. 23; 1 Jn. 3:16-24; Jn. 10:1-18)”
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Here’s the big question: By whose authority? Who has given Jesus the power to cleanse the temple, heal the sick and forgive Sins? Because it’s hard for us to understand life in Jesus’ time, it’s also hard to understand just how fundamental his attack on the moneysellers is. By forgiving sins, Jesus is blasting away …
Article
Each of the four Gospels tells about the woman who anoints Jesus while he is at table, and in each Gospel someone sharply rebukes her for her action. But Luke is unique: unlike the other three Gospels, the act of anointing as told in Luke does not portend Jesus’ death. Instead, hospitality and table fellowship …
Article
If you are reading this column hoping to get some insight into Mark 9:49-50, you can stop now. These verses are intensely obscure; the commentaries offer little help; neither I nor anyone I know has received a special revelation explaining the text. Let us simply agree to move on to other matters. By this point …
Continue reading “Search and Restore (Mark 9:38-50; James 5:13-20)”
Article
On the day after Christmas, my family and I moved from New Jersey to Georgia. In order to set up housekeeping as swiftly and smoothly as possible, we had carefully marked the packing boxes holding our more urgently needed belongings with such labels as "coffee maker!!!" "linens," "clock radio" and "kitchen utensils." These we opened …
Article
Start seeing motorcycles," said the bumper sticker. I didn’t know I wasn’t seeing motorcycles, I thought, then realized that that was the point. How do you begin to see something you didn’t know you were missing? "Start seeing the resurrection," says Jesus, as he walks with the disciples to Jerusalem. He Is teaching them about …
Article
“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. . .” (1 Timothy 1:15). This is the time of year when churches wake up from a long summer nap and get cracking. Vacationers return and we are glad to see them and each other. …
Continue reading “Seeking the Lost Sheep (Ex. 32:7-14;Ps. 51;1-10; 1 Tim. 1:12-17; Lk. 15:1-10)”
Article
Philippians 2: 5-8: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human …
Article
The deacons of a well-off parish announced that they would give grocery vouchers to strangers who dropped by the church office. The vouchers could be used for food, but were “not valid for alcohol, lottery tickets or tobacco.” The congregation was thrilled. Cash handouts were making them uncomfortable. No one wanted to see his greenbacks …
Article
Again, and so soon, we are in the audience listening to one of the most remarkable characters in the Bible, John the desert prophet, the one called the Baptist. Only recently, on the second and third Sundays of Advent, it was John who trumpeted the announcement concerning the One who is to come. Now in …
Article
Do not bother looking for Lent in your Bible dictionary. There was no such thing in biblical times. There is some evidence that early Christians fasted 40 hours between Good Friday and Easter, but the custom of spending 40 days in prayer and self-denial did not arise until later, when the initial rush of Christian …
Article
It is getting harder in the modern translations of the Genesis stories, to extract what Christians have traditionally assumed were references to the three persons of the Trinity. What was clearly translated as “the spirit of God” in the King James Version is “a strong wind from God” in the New Revised Standard Version. If …
Continue reading “Sharing in the Holy Spirit (Gen.1:1-2:4;Ps.8;Matt.28:16-20;2 Cor. 13:11-13)”
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Lectionary readings tease our minds because of their odd combination of openness and closure. They can become a deconstructionist’s dream. By providing only fragments from biblical books (in this case part of an oracle from Isaiah, a reassurance from Paul, a parable from Jesus) , they leave a suggestive opening, not only to other texts …
Article
These days churches are tempted to mimic corporations, and pastors try to become CEOs. But these texts call us to re-imagine our life together as the people of God, and the texts’ images are of sheep and shepherds. In Mark 6 Jesus is pictured as a shepherd-king with Godlike “compassion” as he looks upon the …
Continue reading “Sheep and Shepherds (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)”
Article
The 23rd Psalm has led us in the paths of comfort all the days of our lives. But sometimes we have trouble hearing the things that are closest to us. Psalm 23 was a cherished hymn for the Hebrews. So when we read and sing the psalms as Christians, we are to some degree also …
Article
Although the images of shepherd and sheep wind their way through these lectionary texts, they are difficult images for the contemporary church to embrace. Not only are most of us on this continent far removed from the practices of shepherding; we also believe that the notion has taken on a negative connotation. To describe someone …
Continue reading “Sheepish (Psalm 23; John 10:22-30; Revelation 7:13-17)”
Article
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.. . I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. This word of Jesus never grows old, never loses its holding power, even for us of the …
Article
A missionary friend was scheduled to speak about his mission work at a distant church. He got up before daybreak that Sunday morning and drove 300 miles, preached at two services and spent the afternoon speaking with members of the congregation. As he was leaving that evening, the treasurer of the church gave him an …
Article
Are you kidding me? In these days of Enron, Martha Stewart and wars waged on behalf of phantom weapons, we know better than to defend dishonesty. Then why would Jesus offer a parable lauding it? Upon closer inspection, however, I notice that this parable is just one in a long line of stories that Jesus …
Article
As a weekend gardener, I have discovered the deep satisfaction of seeing the fruit of a well-watered garden. Months of tending and watering yield a delightful harvest of well-formed, abundant produce. In contrast, a hot summer with little water yields plants that are shriveled and produce that is unusable. For a casual gardener the difference …
Continue reading “Shriveled Delight (Is. 58:9b-14; Ps. 103:1-8; Heb. 12:18-29; Lk. 13:10-17)”
Article
I do not have a green thumb. I don’t speak to my plants. Instead I make them grab their throats, gasping for water, before I recognize their parched condition. Then I drench and almost drown them. This is no way to treat any living thing, plant or otherwise. Plants treated this unkindly are spindly and …
Continue reading “Shrubs and Scrubs (Jer. 1 7:5-10; Ps. 1; 1 Cor. 15:12-20; Lk. 6:17-26)”
Article
Q: “What comfort does the return of Christ ‘to judge the living and the dead’ give you?” A: “That in all affliction and persecution I may await with head held high the very Judge from heaven who has already submitted himself to the judgment of God for me and has removed all the curse from …
Continue reading “Siding with Grace (Romans 11:1-32; Matthew 15:21-28)”
Article
We all have our own ideas of what royalty is. When I was about eight, the queen visited the town in the south of England where I lived. Thousands of people packed into a sports stadium and children sang and danced for her. I came away certain that the queen was a special person who …
Continue reading “Signs of the King (Ps. 46; Jer 23:1-6; Col.1:11-20; Lk. 23:35-43)”
Article
The sins revealed in these first three scripture passages are blockbusters — betrayal, idolatry, adultery and violence — the raw material for larger-than-life stories and films. The Bible does not whitewash the sins of its major characters. Their awful failures and wrongdoings are part of the story, as are the human consequences, divine judgment and …
Continue reading “Sin Insulation (Ex. 32:7-14; Ps. 51:1-10; 1 Tim. 1:12-17; Lk. 15:1-10)”
Article
But if we say we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.[I John 1:8] When I try to say how I see the world, I can’t get away from an image that forces itself on me and won’t let go: the Ice Age — this slow advance of …
Article
The first time I heard this parable was as a small child attending vacation Bible school at Fond Fork Baptist Church, where my great-grandparents, great-aunts and grandparents all worshiped. I remember the end of the little curtained balcony where our class was held, sunlight coming into our room rejoicing through a dusty window, the buzzing …
Article
Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith Martin Luther believed that the theology of this text was …
Article
Where I grew up, everybody was pretty much just like me. It was a small, southern community, with a long history, deep roots and consistent Christian morality The only visible difference was our whiteness or our blackness. Ethically speaking, that’s how we saw everything too: white or black, good or bad. For example, in my …
Continue reading “Sins and Sensibilities (Deut. 18:15-20, I Cor. 8:1-13, Mk. 1:21-28)”
Article
Deborah: Judge. Prophetess. Wife or “spirited woman,” depending on how you translate the Hebrew. Powerful woman who advised generals and led troops into battle. Creative woman who composed songs of victory. Wise woman who “sat.” As a seminarian, I was impressed by Deborah’s many roles and responsibilities. She was a leader of men when women …
Article
In 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation marked the beginning of the end of slavery. The new air of freedom brought an unintoxicated euphoria. But a century later, freedom was redefined, this time as an absence of responsibility. The new air of license was inhaled and produced an intoxicated forgetfulness of anything that smacked of authoritarian inhibitions …
Continue reading “Slave Wages (Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42)”
Article
The story of the widow’s mite offers a profound contrast between two types of temple worshipers. But we often misinterpret the reason for Christ’s comparison. He is not preaching a lesson in personal piety and sacrificial giving — although pastors like to use this story during stewardship campaigns. It is critical that we hear instead …
Continue reading “Small Change (Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44)”
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I cherish the vision of what could have been a great moment in American poetry. One day my American literature professor told our class about Emily Dickinson, the quiet and reclusive woman who was satisfied to live in a circumscribed world in Amherst, Massachusetts. Then he told us about Walt Whitman, the wild man of …
Continue reading “Smoothing the Path (Mal. 3:1-4; Lk. 1:68-79; Phil. 1:3-11; Lk. 3:1-6)”
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For those Christians who live their lives within the rhythm of the liturgical year, and for those preachers who are disciplined by the common lectionary, this is the only day of the year that calls us to ponder a teaching of the church rather than a teaching of Jesus. The scriptural readings for the day …
Continue reading “So Explain It To Me (Prov.8:1-4,22-31;Ps.8;Rom.5:1-5;John 16:12-15)”
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Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world [John 17:24]. From love comes glory, not vice versa. Glory which is not rooted in love tends …
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Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Memorial, was explaining to a TV interviewer why her remarkable work has come to have such a strong grip upon the emotions of the American people. "It’s the names," she said, "the names are the memorial. No edifice or structure can bring people to mind as powerfully as their …
Continue reading “Somebody’s Calling My Name (Is. 43:1-7; Lk. 3:15-22)”
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James and John McZebedee matriculated at my seminary again this fall. The "Sons of Entitlement," I call them. They are usually — but not always — young and white in addition to being male. They have typically grown up in the church, attended Christian colleges and majored in religion. They like to refer to their …
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EGO EIMI, Jesus begins. I AM. Then he finishes the audacious sentence: I AM the bread of life. I AM, he goes on, the bread from heaven here to do the will of the One who sent me: to help people believe and by believing have eternal life. The people get hung up on Jesus’ …
Continue reading “Soul Food (I Kings 19.4-8; Jn. 6:35, 41-51)”
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In the Front Line television documentary “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero,” an angry man who has lost many friends expresses rage toward God. “I don’t have problems with the Son,” he says, but I have real problems with the Father.” This denouncement of the first person of the Trinity is evidence that there is …
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In the days before every district superintendent carried a cell phone, driving the charge conference circuit was a great opportunity to listen to the radio. My favorite station was NPR. More than once I found myself totally enthralled by a broadcast story. Sometimes I would pull into my own driveway but be unable to get …
Continue reading “Spellbound (Deut. 18:15-20; Ps. 111; 1 Cor. 8:1-23; Mark 1:21-28)”
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It is tempting to sit in judgment on others. Sometimes we do it in jest, as Mark Twain did when commenting on Adam. “Adam was but human — this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not …
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It is hard to believe what we hear, that we are a blessed people, standing in God’s favor. Hard to believe that God will bring righteousness to our world as mysteriously and yet naturally as a seed sprouts and grows out of the earth. We know it is foolish to put stock in such promises, …
Continue reading “Standing on Promises (Is. 6:1-4,8-11; Ps. 16; I Thes. 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28)”
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“God waited patiently in the days of Noah . . . in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you.” (1 Peter 3:21) Sometimes I’m watching TV news and reach the point where I cannot take in all the violence and destruction. So I …
Continue reading “Starting Over (Gen. 9:8-17; 1 Pet. 3:18-22; Mk. 1:9-5)”
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He was buried alive, this man of the Gerasenes. He was alive, but he lived in a graveyard among the tombs. Modern interpreters tell us that the people possessed by demons in the Gospels probably suffered from forms of mental illness. Some mental illnesses can be effectively treated, others cannot. Many people suffer from depression, …
Continue reading “Stay and Follow (Ps. 22: 19-28; Lk. 8:26-39)”
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When I first encountered God’s calling me to ministry, I thought of Jacob’s encounter at the ford of the Jabbok. While wrestling with me and my hesitations, down along the riverbank, God whispered in my ear, "Barb: If you are going to tell a story, tell my story." Ever since that day, honoring that stipulation …
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There are moments when you just know what’s coming next. No one has to confirm it for you; the feeling in your gut is confirmation enough. After I lay on the ultrasound table for two minutes, the technician left me alone while she went to find the radiologist. I knew I was in trouble. No …
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Cleopas and his unnamed (female?) companion get all the credit. Everyone preaches about an "Emmaus road experience." Nobody preaches about a "stayed-in-Jerusalem-and-waited-to-see-what-happened experience." Everybody preaches about how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread, but nobody preaches about what happened after Jesus asked, "Have you anything here to eat?" …
Continue reading “Staying Power (Luke 24:36-49; Acts 3:12-19)”
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I had a classmate at an evangelical Christian college who repeatedly defined faith as "stepping out of airplanes, knowing that God will catch you." My response was that surely God had better things to do than catch folks stupid enough to step out of airplanes. Matthew’s story of Jesus walking on the water with Peter …
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Who would have thought that being a waiter could be so dangerous? One might expect impatient customers, lousy tips and long hours — these come with the territory. But more dire consequences? Surely not. Yet in the sixth chapter of Acts Stephen is chosen as one of seven who will “wait on tables,” an occupation …
Continue reading “Sticks and Stones (Ps. 31:1-5; Acts 7:55-60; 1 Ptr. 2:2-10; Jn. 14:1-4)”
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The Lectionary loves to take biblical texts that share some things in common and then watch as worlds collide once differences come to light. This week’s comparison-contrast of call stories is a perfect case in point. The story in 1 Kings 19 comes directly from God’s lips to Elijah’s ears and from there to Elisha’s …
Continue reading “Still Small Voice (2 Kings 2: 1-2, 6-14; Lk. 9: 51-62)”
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This has to be the censored version! What parents would leave a crowded city — one that was not their home — and journey a whole day without noting that their child was missing? Today they would be charged with child neglect. What 12-year-old from a loving home would calmly detach from his parents, enter …
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I struggle to make peace with Jesus ordering the sea into peace. If we were to stumble across a time traveler’s videotape and find that it all happened just as Mark reports, I’d still be troubled. Because this isn’t the way the world works. People don’t go around saying, "Peace! Be still!" to the wind …
Continue reading “Storm System (Mark 4:35-41; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13)”
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It was Christmas afternoon. The living room was littered with spent wrapping paper, while gifts were scattered willy-nilly under the tree. Christmas dinner dishes crowded the counter, one daughter-in-law was assembling yet another batch of cookies, and teenagers were picking at Christmas goodies and sampling the dinner ham. Then my mother-in-law began a story. “When …
Continue reading “Story Time (Dt. 26:1-11; Ps. 91:1-2, 9-1-16; Rom. 10:8b-13)”
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A stranger approaches Jacob’s Well at high noon. He is tired and thirsty. There he meets a woman who has come to draw water. Something happens between them. . . . The original readers of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman must have felt themselves on familiar ground. The scene and characters would …
Continue reading “Strangers in the Night (Psalm 95; Ex. 17:1-7; Rom. 5:1-11;Jn. 4:5-42)”
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I remember that only the nerds were crossing guards. No one else would want to wear the badge of looking both ways and always crossing with the light. I remember how as Girl Scouts we obediently wore our uniforms, but also deftly broke the school dress code by hemming the skirts well above the knee. …
Continue reading “Strength Revealed as Weakness (1 Cor. 8:1-13)”
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With each Sunday of Advent, it is as though the Spirit brings us deeper into the Presence by bringing us closer to having our feet on the ground, closer to the present, and closer to our own hearts. The divine Heart Surgeon is reconfiguring our desires so that we can inhabit both the Presence and …
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Lent leads to a set of powerful and paradoxical realities manifested in Holy Week and the paschal event: death and life, defeat and victory, crucifixion and resurrection. Chapters eight and nine of Mark set the tone for the Lenten journey and mirror its conclusion by inextricably binding together two dimensions of salvation: suffering in abandonment …
Continue reading “Suffering and Victory (Mk. 8:31-38; Mk. 9:2-9)”
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Paul was in Rome, the epicenter of empire, the magnet for people on the lam such as fugitive slaves. He was a "prisoner of Christ Jesus" not only because the Messiah had captured his heart but also because he had boldly proclaimed the grace and peace he had found. Somehow, through the Christian grapevine, Onesimus …
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When I needed a childhood photograph for an upcoming staff retreat, I climbed up to the attic to forage among the boxes. There I found my earliest photo album, and in it a picture from my second year of life. Applesauce must have been on the menu that day. Whether it was the applesauce itself …
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After meeting Jesus, an excited Philip seeks out Nathanael to tell him they have found the one ‘about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” But Nathanael’s response is not very promising. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he responds skeptically It’s true: Nazareth was …
Continue reading “Surprise Encounter (Jn. 1:43-51; I Sam. 3:1-10 [11-20])”
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Maybe it’s just my imagination, but has the parable of the prodigal son become something of a bore lately? I know, I know, this is one of the most beautiful stories of grace in the Bible. And yes, I know this is a powerful archetype of human redemption. And yes, this parable presents a picture …
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"A virus breached the campus computer network last week and the entire system crashed. Repair has been difficult, but I bring a word of hope." The director of information technology at the college where I was about to lecture on eschatology added, "This has been frustrating for everyone. Files have been corrupted and programs do …
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P>I saw them eating and I knew who they were. That is a Middle Eastern proverb that Jesus probably knew. It does not make much sense in our own age of fast food and family suppers around the tube, but in Jesus’ day what you ate and whom you ate it with were critical matters. …
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Look at the fig tree, and all the trees; as soon as they come out in leaf, the summer is already near. So also.. . when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. . . . take heed to yourselves . . . [Luke 21:29-34]. Ah, to …
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Choose your words carefully if you preach to the people back home. Those who knew you when remember things that make many messages seem odd. Prophetic moralizing, for example, would sound hypocritical coming from most folks in such circumstances. In my case, P. T. Reppert would likely be out there in the congregation. P. T. …
Continue reading “Taking the Good News Home (I Cor. 12.12-31a, Lk. 4;14-21)”
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And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected . . . and be killed [Mark 8:31]. When Jesus asks, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter’s hand is the first to go up. “You are the Christ,” he answers. Among all the others, he …
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"Your faith has made you well" [Luke17:19]. However, in the long history of the fruitful interaction of science and religion, from Pythagoras to Paracelsus and from Newton to Einstein, the role of religion (though not necessarily of religious authorities) in freeing human powers has generally been recognized. Francis Bacon put it memorably: science should not …
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It is difficult to listen to a text when there are other texts in the room talking about the same subject matter, often in ways more elaborate and more familiar. Mark is the text before us, but Matthew, Luke and John are also in the room. Each has a right to be heard, and there …
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Still wet from his baptism in the Jordan, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted 40 days and 40 nights, and afterward he was hungry" (Matt. 4:1-2) . With these words Matthew addresses those who gather for the first Sunday of Lent. What …
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“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Jesus prayed these words in the Upper Room on the night of his betrayal, knowing that crucifixion would follow with the coming sunrise. The words are part of his final words, and final …
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Both the Hebrew and the Christian testaments proclaim the coming of the Lord, though they present Advent and God in different images. Isaiah describes the coming Lord as a tender, loving warrior: "Behold, the Lord God comes with might, with an arm to rule . . . The Lord will feed the chosen flock like …
Continue reading “The ‘Sense’ of Advent (Is.40:9-11; II Pet.3:8-14; Mk.1:1-8)”
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. . . I found also an altar with this inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you For Christ also died . . . that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which …
Continue reading “The Apologetics of Universal Grace (Acts 17:23b; I Pet.3:18b-l9; John 14:17)”
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(ENTIRE BOOK) A simple and clear analysis of the nature of the Bible. What is the Bible? How do you approach it? The Old Testament. The New Testament. Revelation. The Bible and the modern historical view. History and the Individual.
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“Do not touch.” ” Do not taste.” “Don’t walk on the grass.” What is it about me that wants to do exactly what signs instruct me not to do? The warnings are probably for my benefit. The signs are not evil. So why do they bring out the worst in me? Flip Wilson had American …
Continue reading “The Blame Game (Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)”
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Everybody wants to be somebody. Since the dawn of history, human beings have been trying to move up the scale of importance. The clincher used by the serpent to tempt Adam and Eve was “when you eat of [the tree of good and evil], your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, …
Continue reading “The Call to Downward Mobility (Mk. 10:35-45)”
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Recently, Dear Abby received this letter from a woman signing herself "Katherine in Georgetown, Texas": I sent for a donor form from the Living Bank because I wanted to donate my organs after my death. I received the form, but I can’t get any witnesses to sign it. My husband said, "You can’t imagine how …
Continue reading “The Case of the Missing Liver (I Cor. 15:44)”
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And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two …
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The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ. [I Cor. 10:16a]. THEY HAD ASKED him before; they would ask him again. “Grant us to sit,” said the sons of Zebedee, “one at your right hand and one at your left hand, in your glory” (Mark 10:37). …
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Some grow in their faith by imitating the faithful. Some enhance their faith through study. But today’s lessons suggest that faith involves discovery. Discovery happens in the moment when we shout, "I see!" In that moment we not only learn what was discovered, but we make our own discovery. The apostle Paul was trying to …
Continue reading “The Discovery Channel (Gen. 15:1-l2, 17-18; Lk. 13:31-35; Phil. 3:17-4:1)”
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When I was baptized at the age of 11, I had no idea what the risks of believing n Jesus Christ would be. As the first in my family to become a communicant member of my church, this was a big step for me. I was embarrassed that I had not been baptized as an …
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And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. [Mark 8:31] In what sense “must” the Son of man suffer and rise again? There are many things …
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On the night before Thanksgiving, a clergy friend and I went to hear maverick preacher Rob Bell, who is touring the country on his "The Gods Aren’t Angry Tour." Most folks were home dressing their turkeys, but an interesting crowd of baby boomers, Generation X pastors like me, punk "throw back to the ‘80s"- looking …
Continue reading “The God’s Aren’t Angry (Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20;1 Peter 3:13-22)”
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Mark’s gospel tells us that just before the very end, Jesus cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If this is true, how can he be honored as the "pioneer and perfector of our faith" (Heb. 12:2)? Was not his own faith broken in the anguish of the …
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When Jesus took his place in the temple, he became the target in a deadly game of "Gotcha." Those who owned the power rightly perceived Jesus as a threat, and came at him with entrapment questions about his authority. Aided by spies who helped build an atmosphere of hostility, they pressed the loaded question about …
Continue reading “The Gotcha Game (Lk. 20:27-38;Mk. 12:18; Acts 23:8)”
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“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Not long ago I was driving to a meeting in an unfamiliar town on a …
Continue reading “The Hidden Kingdom (Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35)”
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When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh [Matt. 2:10-11]. The wise men, having achieved the object of their …
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John 3: 11-18: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) Today is Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday tells us that the God in whom we believe is one God in three persons. There are other religions which …
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Imagine that congress has set up a committee to report on the disquieting events on the Jerusalem-Jericho road and their aftermath. Here are some excerpts from its findings. "The Inquiry is satisfied that the priest acted in a thoroughly professional manner. We are aware that he is a man of high profile in Jerusalem society, …
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My father was a cook in the army. Years later, he still cooked as if he were preparing a meal for a division about to take a hill. He believed that food shouldn’t be wasted, yet he cooked potfuls of it for a family of three. “Why didn’t you like it?” or “What was wrong …
Continue reading “The Jesus Diet (Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51)”
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Have you understood all this?" Jesus asked, and they answered, "Yes." Today, some 2,000 years later, we are still answering yes with a straight face . . . and God must be laughing (or weeping) at our lack of self-critical distance. How could we possibly understand "all this"? These parables, this teacher who spoke …
Continue reading “The Joke Is On Us (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52)”
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In l932 my father met my mother by means of one of the great pick-up lines of their era. After a “young people’s” social at their Lutheran church, he followed her along the park on the near north side of St. Louis to the streetcar stop. When he caught up to her, he said with …
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We don’t know a lot about Judas, except that Jesus and the other disciples trusted him a great deal. No doubt that is why they made him their treasurer. We also know that at the Last Supper Judas was sitting next to Jesus when Jesus said that he would be betrayed by the one “who …
Continue reading “The Judas Chromosome (Matthew 26:14-27.10)”
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Matthew 20: 1-16: The Kingdom of Heaven is like this. There was once a land-owner who went out early one morning to hire laborers for his vineyard; and after agreeing to pay them the usual day’s wage he sent then off to work. Going out three hours later he saw some more men standing idle …
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"But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God ." There was once a time when stern Christians knew or thought they knew the …
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Luke 6: 17-26: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will befitted Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Our Gospel lesson for today is part of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew, the sermon on …
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Ezekiel 17: 22-23, Mark 4: 26-29: The kingdom of God is like this: A man scattered seed on the land; he goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning, and the seed sprouts and grows — how, he does not know. The ground produces a crop by itself first the blade, then …
Continue reading “The Kingdom of God is Like This (Ezekiel 17:22-23, Mark 4:26-29)”
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What happens when we die? An unsettling question, but this way of posing it does keep it at arm’s length, a subject for theological or philosophical or medical discussion. What happens when you die? What happens when I die? Surely the question cannot come closer to home than this. But it can. The Christian gospel …
Continue reading “The Last Word: A Good Friday Meditation on Luke 23:46 (Luke 23:46)”
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John 6: 52-58: He who eats my flesh and drinks my’ blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the …
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"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, who shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land" Jer. 23:51. The Scripture readings (Jer. 23:1-6, Col. 1:13-20, Luke 23:35-43) will not allow us to push Christ’s kingship off …
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"…and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" [Luke 1:41b-42]. It should not be altogether surprising that someone whose grasp of Christianity was destined to take a Protestant form would never have been able to …
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Exodus 20: 1-20; Matthew 18: 21-35 You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? (Matt. 18: 32-33) Jesus told several parables to illustrate the nature of the kingdom of God. The meaning of …
Continue reading “The Mercy of God (Exodus 20: 1-20; Matthew 18: 21-35)”
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The Word was made flesh . . . " In my childhood, this was the Gospel reading for the morning after, the kind of explanatory imagining that would take place when the sun had risen, the angels and shepherds were gone and all the hushed wonder of the night before was blurring in memory. I …
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Eternal punishment. Like it or not, it is a biblical concept, albeit a late-blooming one. In the Old Testament, the afterlife is rarely spoken of, and when it is, it is usually pictured as a shadowy, wraithlike existence. For the dominant line of thought in the Old Testament, "Sheol [the realm of the dead] cannot …
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Philippians 2: 3-11 Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, …
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Ash Wednesday is not known in the church as our good humor day. So I was at first puzzled when I reached into my file, untouched since the first day of Lent last year, and found that I had scribbled the following: "On Ash Wednesday, the minister who just had to be different slung a …
Continue reading “The Most Uncomfortable Day of the Year (Mk 1:15)”
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He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree. [Luke 1:51-52, RSV] There is something peculiarly biblical in these words from the Magnificat of Mary. And though the immediate Christian inclination has been to interpret them in terms …
Continue reading “The Nativity as Divine Comedy (Luke 1:51-52, RSV)”
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“. . . this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood …
Continue reading “The New Age of the Spirit (Acts 2:17-17a; 20a; 21)”
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“Mommy, I want to go to the cross” were the first words out of her mouth when we arrived at Grandma’s late one evening. A lighted cross sat high up on a hill overlooking the lake. Four-year-old Sarah was drawn by the beauty of its lights as they reflected on the lake and by her …
Continue reading “The Obedient Son (Phil. 2:1-13;Matt.21:23-32)”
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Jesus’ behavior surprises me. Not his challenge of the narrow expectations in his hometown — an attack on parochialism, nationalism or ethnocentrism fits what we know of him. But I’m surprised by the offensive way he picks this fight. Hearing his stirring words in the synagogue, his old neighbors approve of him, are proud of …
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Church bells chime. Two muscle-bound men stand arms-crossed in front of a Gothic cathedral. A gay couple approaches holding hands. “Step aside, please,” say the muscle-bound guards. They speak similar words to an African-American girl, a Hispanic man, a young man in a wheelchair. Then, just as we realize that the two large men are …
Continue reading “The Other “H” Word (I Cor. 1:1-9; Jn. 1:29-42)”
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“See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3). If human beings grew up individually among wolves, they would not know what to do as human beings. There would not be a human posture or human ways of eating, sitting or walking. Human beings become persons only by living …
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Here it begins: the baptism of Jesus is the occasion of his calling. Even in Matthew and Luke, which begin with stories about his birth and identity, his baptism is the inception of the main narrative. It is here that the adult Jesus shows up on the stage of history. In this event, baptism means …
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But in the readings for the First Sunday in Advent, Paul instructs the believers "to wake from sleep" because "the night is far gone, the day is at hand" (Rom. 13:11) For Paul, as for the more mystical religions, the day-night division is a symbol of spiritual transformation. But for Paul the inversion is not …
Continue reading “The Owl in the Daylight (Rom. 13:11; Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17; 11:33)”
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There are many ways to tell the story of what happened on Good Friday. According to John, it involved a collision between religion and politics. While Pilate and the chief priests conspired to solve their mutual problem while managing to remain enemies, Jesus stood at the center of the stage like a mirror in which …
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The perils of poverty are well documented. Malnutrition and starvation kill 35,000 children every day. Forty million people die every year from poverty’s perils — the lack of food, shelter, health, education and hope. The poor are vilified and robbed of their dignity and self-esteem. Riches have their perils as well. A rich man asked …
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The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law [I Cor. 15:56]. In Corinthians, celebrating salvation leads to exhortation, to a reflection on the fact that Jerusalem still lies trampled by God’s enemies. Sin, the "sting of death," dictates much of the story of our personal and national life. These …
Continue reading “The Power of Sin Is the Law (I Cor. 15:56)”
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Majestic now Christ stands and proclaims the prophet’s words fulfilled. Well, that’s not quite accurate. He does read the words standing up, but then in good rabbinic fashion he sits down to teach. Still, there is majesty to be imagined in that sitting and in the brief sentence pronounced to the expectant hearers: “Today this …
Continue reading “The Proclamation (Neh 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Cor. 12:12-31a; Lk 4:14-21)”
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Once upon a fairly recent time it was common knowledge, at least to Protestants, what a Protestant was. On the last Sunday in October Protestants gathered together to celebrate the fact that a Protestant was not a Roman Catholic. Reformation Sunday was meant to affirm the inheritance of a reformed and evangelical Protestantism, with a …
Continue reading “The Protestant Dilemma (Jer. 31:7-9; Ps. 126; Heb. 7:23-28; Mk. 10:46-52.)”
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The psalmist has a body, and it figures prominently in his poetry. His kidneys lash him, his heart rejoices, his pulse (or liver) beats with joy. His body is not gross matter imprisoning him; it pulsates, breathes, dwells securely and participates fully in the overflowing joy and delight he feels in God’s right hand forever. …
Continue reading “The Psalmist (Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Ps. 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; Jn. 20:19-31)”
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A man had two sons . . . was a common way to begin a parable, especially one comparing good and bad sons. Matthew uses it to contrast one son, who promises to work in the vineyard but never shows up, with another, who at first adamantly refuses to go to the vineyard but later …
Continue reading “The Real Prodigal (2 Cor. 5:16-21; Lk 15:1-3, 11b-32)”
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Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He digged it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he …
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Sometimes the point of scripture is the transcendence of the Holy One. This was something Isaiah knew well — "Truly, you are a God who hides yourself" (45:15) — as did the long-suffering Job. So did Paul, who comes to a point in his Epistle to the Romans when he realizes he cannot go any …
Continue reading “The Samaritan Spends the Night (Deut. 30: 9-14; Luke 10:25-37)”
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One of the most important motifs of the Advent season is that of "the sent" and "the sender." Generations of believers have found hope in the notion that someone (or something) is coming to relieve them of their burden. This someone will be sent by a higher, divine power who has seen the people’s affliction …
Continue reading “The Sent and the Sender (Is. 61:1-2, 65:17-25; I Th. 5:16-28; Jn. 1:6-8, 19-28.)”
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“Fear,” writes Karl Barth, “is the anticipation of a supposedly certain defeat.” This is what rules the emotions of Joseph’s brothers, who fear and hate their brother’s favored status. This is what strikes the hearts of Jesus’ disciples when they see him walking toward them on the water. And this is how it is with …
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Once there was a short, rich, bad man in Jericho named Zacchaeus. He heard that Jesus was coming to town, and he really wanted to see him. Unfortunately, the crowds around Jesus were thick and Zacchaeus was short, so he couldn’t see. Then Zacchaeus had an idea. He would climb a sycamore tree. Fortunately, Jesus …
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So where was Thomas anyway that first Easter evening? In my childhood Sunday school classes, Thomas was a “bad guy.” When the other ten disciples told him that Jesus was alive after his crucifixion, Thomas refused to believe it. He separated himself from the others and demanded to see Christ for himself. In short, we …
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In II Timothy 1 Paul speaks with confidence about the genealogical roots of faith, and now in II Timothy 3:14-4:5 he returns to the theme with an eye to preparing someone for the Christian vocation. He encourages Timothy to "continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it …
Continue reading “The Spirit in Sound Doctrine (II Timothy 1; II Timothy 3:14-4:5)”
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Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, . . . famines and pestilences, and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. . . . do not be terrified. .. . This will be a time for you to bear testimony [Luke 21:5-19]. Tourists from everywhere shuffle …
Continue reading “The Things That Make for Peace (Luke 21:5-191)”
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“From now on you will be catching people.” — Luke 5:10 This fishing motif has traditionally been regarded as a kind of recruiting slogan. But I confess to thinking that Jesus could have done better. Despite its ghastly ironies, the U.S. Army’s invitation to “Be all you can be” has a lot more going for …
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In garden design, gates and curved paths and alcoves satisfy a human desire for mystery and resolution. A well-planned garden mirrors the invitation to pilgrimage and spiritual completion. Ascensiontide — this most profound time of the Christian year — invites a man or woman of prayer to make a turn on the path that reveals …
Continue reading “The Turn in the Path (Revelation 21:10; John 14:23-29)”
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The urge to travel is in Abraham’s genes. According to Genesis 11, his father, Terah, uprooted the family from the southern Mesopotamian town of Ur and headed north to Haran. He intended to lead the family all the way to Canaan, but when he died in Haran a portion of the family settled there. Abram …
Continue reading “The Urge to Travel (Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm, 121)”
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After the hectic and holy Christmas season, after the unusual turning of a new century, and, wonderfully, a new millennium, the church and the culture will settle back into familiar rhythms. For the church and its calendar, this means the season of Epiphany with its festivals of Magi, miracles, baptism and transfiguration. On the cultural …
Continue reading “The Waters of Solidarity (Gen. 1:1-5;Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11)”
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The account of Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well (John 4:5-42) is difficult to read because most of us have been subjected to highly imaginative and biblically unwarranted portraits of her which distort our understanding. Evangelists aplenty have assumed that the brighter her nails, the darker her mascara and the shorter her skirt, …
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made [John 1:1-3]. It is the truest of all insights. There must be a time to …
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"Be like the wise man who built his house on the rock" In Papago Park, a preserve near the center of Phoenix, two small rock mountains rise up from the desert. One of them, Garden Butte, is 1.6 billion years old. The other, about half a mile away, is a youngster at only 17 …
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And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them [Exod. 32: 9-10]. This is remarkable! God is criticizing God’s own people! This God is radically different from the …
Continue reading “They are a Stiff-Necked People (Exod. 32: 9-10)”
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"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way is a thief and a robber." "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your forebears did, so do you." "When reviled, he did not revile in …
Continue reading “Thieves and Robbers (John 10:1; Acts 7:51;I Pet. 2:23)”
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Never in my life has the violence in the Gospel of John seemed so recognizable. Now it corresponds to the daily news: a man fears going out in public in Jerusalem, as Jesus did on that festival of booths. This simple act can result in either glory or destruction, depending on whether “the street” murmurs …
Continue reading “Thirst Quencher (Jn. 7: 37-39, Acts 2:1-21, Ps, 104:24-34,35b)”
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I was a freshman in college when I went to my first — and last — tent revival. I still remember the smell of sawdust, the glare of bare light bulbs, the squeak of metal chairs. And I remember the evangelist — a wild-eyed man waving a Bible in one hand, slicking his hair back …
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While vacationing in Orlando, Florida, my wife and I visited the "Terminator 2 Show" at Universal Studios. We entered the studio and received special 3-D glasses. When we peered through the glasses, the length and width of the images on the movie screen were deepened and our experience enhanced. The glasses created the illusion that …
Continue reading “Three-Dimensional Faith (Hebrews 2:10-18)”
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I remember the day I received my call — follow me and I will make you fish for people. In my case it was a call to ordained ministry. Although my call was more like a slow culmination of events and experiences, there was one dramatic moment in my senior year in high school. It …
Continue reading “Thy Will Be Done (Jonah 3:1-5, 10; I Cor.7:29-31; Mk. 1:14-20)”
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Luke 2:10-17 Do nor be afraid I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord This will be a sign to you: You wilt find a baby wrapped in strips of …
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Our church has an unwritten rule: we will never ignore a member’s basic need. Whenever our members know of a need in the church, they call me. "Is there any money in the benevolence fund? You know Johnny got cut back on his hours, and his kids need help with school supplies." The answer is …
Continue reading “Ties That Bind (1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18; Acts 4:-12)”
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As the leaves fall from the trees and the earth goes brown and bare, the church contemplates the end as well — the end of our lives in death and the end of the world with Christ’s coming. The very idea that there will be an end is threatening to those of us who have …
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About a year and a half ago my wife and I bought our first house. Before we moved in there was a lot to do: hang new curtains, paint, pull up old carpet, install new counter tops and purchase a microwave. Although we are now settled in, I have not been able to kick the …
Continue reading “To See and Not to See (Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21)”
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Touching can be as routine as a handshake or a high five. It can be as exploitative as lustful pawing, as threatening as a clenched fist. Or, as the Easter account in Luke 24 proclaims, touching can be the means whereby the risen Lord Jesus chooses to make himself known. After Jesus’ Emmaus appearance, the …
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Clarence Jordan used to say that a parable from Jesus was like a Trojan horse. You let it in, and Bam! — it’s got you. But this business about the “talents” has never quite “gotten” me. Yes, it has that marvelous, often-quoted line, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I’ve tried that in a funeral …
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He had real grit, that Joshua. When his fellow spies felt like grasshoppers and the Canaanites looked like giants, Joshua and his friend Caleb urged the Hebrews to take them on even when their compatriots threatened to stone them for their advice. After Moses died and Joshua assumed command, he showed his mettle by trusting …
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When I was in first grade, teachers assigned students to reading groups based on how well they could read. They would name all the groups after birds so that everyone would feel equal, but you could always tell how well you were doing by what bird your group was named after. There were the Eagles, …
Continue reading “True Grit (Mk. 7:24-37; James 2:1-10; Matt. 15:21-28)”
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Christians tend to compare their personal conversion experiences to Saul’s encounter on the road to Damascus. Not all of us, of course, talk freely about what happened in us and to us on the way to becoming Christian. Our levels of comfort with such talk vary widely depending on our congregational culture, our notions of …
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When the congregation I serve initiated a prayer chain several years ago, its participants were amazed at the response: healing intercessions requested for all manner of illnesses and ailments — physical, emotional, 1 spiritual, societal. The calls poured in from members and nonmembers alike. Why so well received? In part, because those seeking out intercessory …
Continue reading “Twice Healed (2 Cor. 1:18-22; Mk. 2:1-12)”
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The Casual Reader of Matthew 5:13-20 will be struck by the apparent disjunctures both between the passage and its context and within the passage itself. The Beatitudes conclude at verse 12 and Jesus immediately addresses his followers as the "salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." These images are radically different, but …
Continue reading “Two Arenas for Faithfulness (Matthew 5:13-20)”
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I find myself drawn in each of these meditations not to a single. point from a single text but to the way the combined texts draw us into a complex of problems. In the reading from Exodus 6:2-8, God speaks to Moses his prophet and renews for another generation the promise first made to Abraham, …
Continue reading “Two Divine Promises (Ex.6:2-8; Rom.11:33-36; Mt.16:13-20)”
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Often Jesus’ words seem perversely contrary to sense. Take, for example, his central bit of advice in our Gospel passage for today: "If anyone wants to follow after me, let him renounce himself and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will destroy it; but whoever will destroy …
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After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill, and his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to …
Continue reading “Understanding Faith and Miracle (II Kings 17:17-24)”
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I don’t smoke them," he said. "I eat them." I knew what he meant. Neither one of us smoked cigarettes until we were a few months into our first pastorates — tiny, rural churches staffed by us city boys straight out of seminary. When Reinhold Niebuhr wrote glowingly in his diary about small churches in …
Continue reading “Unforgiven (Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 13:8-14)”
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The First Church of St John, or “the community of the beloved disciple,” as the late Raymond Brown called it, seems a lot like the church around the corner when you read between the lines. Some of the faithful sound a little too sure of themselves. Others confuse the talk with the walk. Some members …
Continue reading “Unless Someone Guides Me (Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21)”
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Once again, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness for a critical encounter. This time he meets not Satan, but a most unlikely angel. In the heat of the day, a messenger of God joins him for a life-giving exchange. Tired from his journey, Jesus sits down at Jacob’s well, then realizes that …
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You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Talk about throwing the book at your listeners. Where did this Baptist study preaching anyway? Didn’t they teach John the importance of introductions, of "contracting" and "partnering" with his listeners? But he isn’t listening to homiletics professors. "Look around," John says. …
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Last Sunday’s family conflict story in Genesis 25 offers preachers an opportunity to talk about family conflict in their own communities. This is risky business for preachers. As they gaze out on worshipers and prepare to begin a sermon, they know — and see — individuals who are currently embroiled in a family dispute or …
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This portion of the narrative is a continuation and expansion of what has just preceded. The other ten disciples are jealous, are angry with James and John because they have pushed Jesus — successfully — to give them a preeminent share in his destiny. Jesus has not criticized or dismissed their insistent demand but has …
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My favorite Kierkegaardian parable is called “The Man Who Walked Backwards.” The Danish philosopher was particularly hard on religious professionals, and claimed that inconsistent behaviors most often accompany exorbitant professions of good intentions: When a man turns his back upon someone and walks away, it is so easy to see that he walks away, but …
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The book of Isaiah juxtaposes desperate need with glorious abundance and speaks to people who know the first condition so well they find it hard even to dream about the second. Isaiah writes of the wilderness and dry land being glad, of the desert swarming with healthy blossoms, of people once wracked by "fearful hearts, …
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Few things are more complicated than trying to erect a new monument in the heart of Washington, D.C. Local committees, federal investigators, landmark boards, and one commission after another must approve each project. On September 9, 1997, a gigantic crane cut through all of the red tape encircling Judiciary Square and lowered a four-ton sculpture …
Continue reading “Wake-up Call (Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44)”
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Only 87 entries separate America and amnesia in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Tenth Edition. Perhaps the name of our nation and the term designating memory loss live in the same lexical neighborhood because they are so fond of each other. I like to imagine them taking road trips together, drinking cognac, smoking cigars and reminiscing about …
Continue reading “We Are Aliens (Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)”
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Early on Easter morning, some women from Galilee went to the tomb where they had left Jesus. They came because they had been up all night, as people in grief often are, and because it is somehow easier to grieve at the grave site. This is how the Easter story starts — not with everybody …
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For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies. not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living. My dear people, do not be weary in well-doing (II Thess. 3:11-13). In both …
Continue reading “Weariness in Well-Doing (II Thess. 3:11-131)”
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In considering Mark’s story of Jesus’ stilling the storm and rebuking the wind, the Book of Job is helpful. It reminds us that in the Old Testament creation is described in part as a great struggle between God and the sea. In fact, the sea is presented as a monster that only God’s ineffable power …
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One August I was hiking with new friends just 15 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. They wanted to show me a favorite trail, a path that winds its way through summer-golden hills, past ravines of alder, oak and eucalyptus, and then straight on to the Pacific. We climbed the crest of a ridge …
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When fairy tales begin with the familiar phrase "Once upon a time," they signal a mythical point of departure: the beginning of a great adventure. If Matthew had known this phrase, he might have employed it to introduce the calling of the first disciples, since his version of this story begins with the breathless anticipation …
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My extended family once had so many males named Frederick that the women in the family assigned each of us numbers so the tribe could distinguish between us at family reunions. I became Fred IV. A casual observer might have thought that we considered ourselves royalty, or perhaps a line of renegade popes. I have …
Continue reading “What Child is This? (Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25)”
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One year while serving as pastor of a congregation just outside Indianapolis, I met with a two-member worship committee to plan Holy Week and Easter services. The budget was tight that year. "Is there any way to avoid paying a buck a palm branch?" I was asked. I moved quickly to seize the teaching moment. …
Continue reading “What Do the Palms Say? (A Meditation for Palm Sunday)”
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While giving lectures at a mid-western college I came face to face with a major affliction among young people: biblical illiteracy. As we tried to interpret some literature crammed with biblical allusions (all of which functioned symbolically), the students were at sea. They knew none of the biblical contexts. Finally we got to the theme …
Continue reading “What Does the Bible Say? (Ezek. 34:11-16; I Cor. 15:20-28; Mt. 25:31-46.)”
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Last year, just in time for Easter, Mel Gibson released an edited version of his controversial film The Passion of the Christ. A few brutal scenes had been cut and camera angles had been changed, all in an attempt to soften the graphic violence of the original. Gibson said that the new edition of the …
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What has the gospel of John given us, and what are we to do with it? Working from end to beginning we must, at a minimum, account for such contested verses as these: • "If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it" (14:14). • "Very truly, I tell you, the …
Continue reading “What Has the Gospel of John Given Us (John 14:1-14)”
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And the multitudes asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise” Luke 3:10-11. The strange story of Jesus begins with the even stranger figure of John the Baptist. This odd …
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John the Baptist’s fiery call to repentance sounds harsh when we’re in the midst of preparations for the baby Jesus. The birth of a child is usually preceded by joyful expectation. But the child envisioned by John will come with an axe, with a winnowing fork and with purging flame. Although John is most severe …
Continue reading “Wheat and Chaff (Is. 11:1-10; Rom. 15:4-13; Matt. 3:1-12)”
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In the first half of Mark 7 Jesus says that you can’t judge a book by its cover; you must look beyond external factors like nationality or religious heritage or social position to get the real story on someone s faith. He then puts this theory into practice by traveling a good 100 miles out …
Continue reading “When the Gospel Goes to the Dogs (Mark 7:24-30)”
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I was in Cuba this summer on a mission trip when our host pastor, Héctor Méndez, approached me, his face grave and drawn. “They have attacked a Presbyterian hospital and school in Pakistan,” he said, “and people have been killed.” The next day our U.S. delegation, along with the congregation in Cuba, prayed for families …
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Here comes that man again, running up to Jesus with a question about eternal life. We can hear those dreaded words on Jesus’ lips even before the man approaches: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." …
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Mark’s gospel is some kind of joke. It announces itself as the story of the Son of God, but it doesn’t begin with glory. Instead it starts in obscurity in the wilderness. It portrays the disciples — surely the leaders of the church in Mark’s day — as bungling fools. They watch Jesus perform one …
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We humans know our language cannot communicate the greatness of the divine, but we try anyway. We love to use the prefix omni, which takes a common adjective and expands it to the size of the universe: omnifarious, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omni-loving, omni-merciful, omni-cool. The omni words are reserved for God and God alone. The …
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I am indebted to my friend and former pastor Paul Duke for the image of Jesus as a mother standing with her hand on the doorknob, her coat over her arm, watching her children play with Legos on the living room floor. One of them looks up suddenly and, noticing that she is about to …
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When my daughter was in grade school, her teacher included a unit on table manners. The rule that amused me was, "When served food, you should never ask, ‘What is this?"’ I don’t think I’ve asked that question aloud, but I’ve certainly thought it, especially at potlucks. What is this gray casserole? I can anticipate …
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There was a time when Reformation Sunday provided the occasion for Protestants to get together and say bad things about Catholics. Reformation services were conclaves of smug pronouncements. We had the truth and they did. not. They felt the same way about us. When my mother was married in 1944, her best friend watched from …
Continue reading “Why Bother With Reformation? (John 8:31-36)”
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Peter’s objection to Jesus’ promised suffering makes sense. He had made considerable sacrifice to follow Jesus. He and his brother Andrew had left a thriving fishing business and the security of their Galilean home when Jesus said, “Come, follow me.” They staked their future on the assumption that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah who would …
Continue reading “Why Follow a Crucified Christ? (Mk. 8:27-38)”
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Jesus has warned before that the rich will have it hard at the entrance to the kingdom. Now he praises the poor widow’s offering, and makes it clear that the standard measurement for assessing gifts is not how much we give to the work of God or how much we put in the offering plate, …
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“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19: 25-27a). Job sees God as fire. In God’s presence, Job’s skin burns away, yet he remains intact to behold …
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Like a fire out of control, the Holy Spirit leapt from the Jews to the gentiles, amazing Peter and his fellow Christians from Jerusalem. The Spirit was wild, unpredictable, totally beyond human restraint. Opinions vary about how important the Spirit was in Judaism before the Christian era. The Spirit had some connection to Sophia, the …
Continue reading “Wildfire (Acts10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-7)”
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“The Spirit of the triune God is and will always be the life force of the world and all that is good and hopeful in it, which includes the hunger for God,” — Joanna Adams During an attempted coup in Indonesia in 1965, an estimated 500,000 people were killed. What did not make the headlines …
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It was a great day for multiculturalism. It was the Tower of Babel turned upside-down, and what fell out was a glorious manifestation of the grace of God. It was also a tough day for future lay readers: all those forbidding names — Parthians, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, Pamphyilians — that whole crowd. In Luke’s …
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As the gusty winds of change blow unpredictably through the church, Jesus provides an intriguing sound bite in the Gospel lesson: "One puts new wine into fresh wineskins." Fresh wineskins, as faith communities experiment with alternative worship rituals. Fresh wineskins, as local congregations adopt new administrative structures. Fresh wineskins, as denominations reshape their organizational patterns …
Continue reading “Wine Tasting (2 Corinthians 3:1-6; Mark 2:13-22)”
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What is the point of pursuing wisdom? Well, to become wise. That is, wisdom is its own end, or its own reward. This sort of answer may suffice for philosophers (those who are “lovers of wisdom”), but James has other ideas. There are at least two respects in which James and other Christians might think …
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In this information age, a steady stream of input is bombarding us. Like water from a fire hose, information overwhelms and numbs us. But are we any wiser? Are we any closer to God, or to God’s design or intentions for life? Are we humbler? Are we learning anything about the way life really works? …
Continue reading “Wisdom Famine (Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20)”
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Imagine that you are sitting in a darkened movie theater, eating popcorn. You have already seen three previews of coming attractions and now it is time for the feature presentation. The screen goes black, and from the speakers you begin to hear the sounds of a meal in progress — the clink of utensils, the …
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In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called …
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It is the day after Jesus fed the 5,000. The picnic is over and Jesus has taken his disciples to the other side of the lake. But the crowds of people who shared the meal with him yesterday and who then tried to turn him into their king are not about to let him go. …
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I laughed out loud when I first heard Martin Luther’s explanation of how the Reformation happened: "While I have been sleeping, or drinking Wittenberg beer with my friend Philip and with Amsdorf, it is the Word that has done great things. . . . I have done nothing, I have let the Word act. It …
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When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. …
Continue reading “Works of God in Our Tongues (Acts 2:1-11)”
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The world is full of walls. Everywhere we go, there are fences, gates, partitions and other ingeniously constructed barriers — all aimed at keeping something or someone in and keeping something or someone else out. We need walls: walls in our homes to protect us against wind and rain; walls to keep livestock safely in …
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And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be [Luke 1:291. Many representations of the annunciation in painting, literature and film, while emphasizing Mary’s faithfulness, have lingered over the fear and questioning hinted at in Luke. In what depths of Mary’s …
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Yahweh is tenderness and pity, slow to anger, full of faithful love. Yahweh is generous to all, his tenderness embraces all his creatures. All you creatures shall thank you, Yahweh, and your faithful shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingship and tell of your might (Ps. 145:8-11). One image of …
Continue reading “Yahweh Is Generous to All (Psalms 145:8-11)”
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Devout Christians often appropriate the Bible’s language and patterns to frame their spiritual experiences. When feeling dry or abandoned, we speak of exile or desert sojourns. Prodded to an unknown destination, we invoke the memory of a wandering Aramaean. After long vigils, when we finally know, we say we’ve heard a still, small voice. Summoned …
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Luke 3: 21-22 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.” This …
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Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing. In grassy meadows he lets me be. By tranquil streams he leads me to restore my spirit. He guides me in paths of saving justice as befits his name. Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for you …
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Those who hear Jesus’ teachings are struck, some quite deeply, by the level of ethical conduct expected of his followers. Some, to be sure, become his disciples rather casually, half-listening, really hearing him only later when crises or guilt plunge them into a serious reflection on their baptismal vows. Others hear him quite clearly, pause …
Continue reading “You, Therefore, Must Be Perfect (Matt. 5:20)”
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Jesus understood his listeners well. This parable, with its setting in the vineyard, describes the life of most of the people who were listening to him. Its emotions are primary — wanting a fair wage for a fair day’s work. When I was a kid growing up in the Willamette Valley, teenagers and migrant laborers …
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I learned something about what is possible at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, just after morning prayer. I had told another resident of the Ecumenical Institute that the monks had begun 1 Corinthians, in case she wanted an opportunity to hear the letter read aloud. Her doctoral thesis had been on a passage from the …
Continue reading “Zealous Hopes (Is. 9:2-7; Ps. 96; Titus 2:11-14; Lk. 2:1-20)”
