There is a message in the story of Abraham and Isaac that moved me this week, given the state of the world these days. Consider this: someone, either Abraham or Isaac, told the story of what happened on that mountain. Otherwise, we would not have the story. The trauma didn’t get buried, but told.
Read MoreRecently my niece, finishing up her freshman year of college, called my wife to ask her a series of questions. “How did you pay for college?” “Have you ever inherited money?” “Do you own your home?” “If so, why did you choose where you live?” The aim of the questions, created in a class about social justice, were obviously meant to address privilege. Yes, both my wife and I have inherited money. Not a lot, but enough to make a down payment on our house possible. Yes, both my wife and I didn’t have to pay for college. We started our working lives with little debt and that has made it easier to reap the benefits of education without being saddled with the burden of its cost. We started the game, as I recently heard it said, on third base, while so many others aren’t even in the parking lot.
Read MoreWe live in a time of rising anger and hatred, widespread suffering, and deepening division. Some of that comes from the stuff we’d rather not look at in our backpacks. Ditch the pack, Jesus says. Be vulnerable with one another, and do the work of the gospel together.
Read MoreSo happy birthday to all of you preachers. Be sure to dream big, envision faithfully, and prophesy well in a divided world. God’s vision needs your voices. The Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, so out you go. Happy Pentecost.
Read MoreI didn’t know about cancer until the bishop told me sometime last year. When I was meeting with her not long after, I asked her about it and she talked about it. I think it was at that meeting that I found out that Joyce was an Uber driver. I must have looked surprised because she started laughing and said that she enjoyed it. It gave her the opportunity to talk with people she wouldn’t have talked with otherwise. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Read MoreOver the past few weeks I’ve seen celebratory signs in yards, shoe polished windows on minivans, and more than a few teenagers in parks, garbed in flowing medieval dress, topped with flat tasseled hats, their families adoringly snapping pictures. The class of 2020 has graduated and what a strange graduation it has been--online ceremonies, remote speeches, diplomas in the mail. Many of us feel for these graduates, but I’m sure that despite the strangeness, the meaning of this time still holds hope. School is over and new independence, learning, and possibility lie ahead.
Read MoreIn this uncertain time, if and when we get lost, or worried, or overwhelmed, I think we ought to start where Joyce Hardy could always be found. Over the course of her remarkable ministry, she served others the way Jesus did the night he washed his friends’ feet. Her love was concrete, outward looking, and humble.
Read MoreNot long after the COVID19 pandemic began to spread across the United States and our lives suddenly became very strange, I heard about a new book on the climate crisis and decided it would be just the thing to read in this anxious time. Sometimes it helps to put a present pain in context and remember it is not the greatest challenge we’re facing.
Read MoreThe evidence points to the reality that the God we worship is a living God. Which means that God must still be on the move. The cross is empty, the tomb is empty, and now strangely, even our churches are empty (Pulpit Fiction). We thought perhaps that we had God nicely contained here in beautiful buildings and our liturgies and in the breaking of the Communion bread. But even our most sacred rituals cannot contain a living God.
Read MoreLast week, Kate showed us that this year, we have more in common with the disciples after the resurrection than ever before. This is true in terms of our circumstances: huddled together in houses, unsure of our safety. But it’s also true in terms of our responsibility towards the Gospel. Just like us, the disciples knew that how the story of the resurrection gets told matters. And nowhere do we see intentionality in storytelling, in every word and theme, more than in the writings from the Johannine community, from whom we get today’s gospel passage.
Read MoreIf it’s true that we find ourselves closer to the experience of that first Easter morning, what if we also find ourselves closer to the whole gospel story, not just to the joyful ending but to the entire story of Jesus? What if we could understand the good news of Christ in a new way, given our present circumstances? It seems to me that if we look around right now, the ancient Christian story is unfolding right before our very eyes, here and now, in real time. And we are all included in it.
Read MoreHumility can be our balm, our way into the ground where the seeds of our flourishing can be planted and spring forth with radiant beauty and life. But for that ground to be alive, to give us the renewal we need for resurrection, we must enter into death and surrender even of our hope to God.
Read MoreThe miracle in this story is not God’s power to make the dry bones live again, but God’s capacity to love the dry bones to begin with. Where Ezekiel saw only empty, ugly, dry bones, God saw the fundamentals of human life. This is a basic fact about our God: where we see only death, God always offers life.
Read MoreMost of us wouldn’t think of the 23rd Psalm as an apocalyptic passage. It is our most familiar psalm, one of the most known and cherished parts of scripture, and for good reason. Its words are deeply comforting, its images deep and life giving. But at the Psalm’s heart is a message meant to bring perspective, God’s revelation, to a people in crisis. This ancient song is meant to bring a message so profound and powerful that when fully encountered it will change the very way we live.
Read MoreWe have been training for this moment spiritually for a long time, and we are ready for it. It might not feel like we are, with so much fear going around, but it’s true. All the times we’ve been in church before, all the times we’ve read the scriptures, all the times we’ve said our prayers, we have been preparing for this moment.
Read MoreTruly, we are all Nicodemus, peering out into the night, hoping against hope for a message of comfort and reassurance from our God. Faithful as ever, God sends us the same message that Nicodemus and Moses and all of our ancestors have heard: the source of our fear will be the source of our grace, grace in the night.
Read MoreAs we begin our Lenten journey, consider the power of the word “no” for Christian discipleship. Because of your faith, what do you need to say no to?
Read MoreFog, these days, comes with a warning on our phones; a weather advisory to slow down. A foggy mind, cloudy thinking, caught in a haze--the metaphors of our culture reflect a negative stance toward life in the clouds. We love to be able to see what’s ahead and around us. But our scriptures are full of places where it is in the fog that faith is found, it is in the fog that we encounter the divine.
Read MoreIt turns out that some dusty old verses in scripture can be planted in us after all, and grow into the medicine we need.
Read MoreI believe that there are critical moments in the life of a community in which a look back at the people and patterns and systems of the past is a valuable spiritual practice. In fact, I think Jesus himself encouraged theological reflection on history.
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