Shame and guilt are ideas that usually go hand in hand with penitence in the season of Lent. But Brené Brown suggests that we might need to look at repentance in a different way, and she’s not alone. Each year on Ash Wednesday we are greeted by the insuppressible faith and determination of the prophet Joel, who, as it turns out, has been speaking Brown's language all along.
Read MoreSometimes, when I think about Moses offering the Israelites life or death, blessings or curses, I imagine him in a black tie and apron with a pen and pad waiting to take my order at a fancy restaurant. “Our specials this evening are life in which you’ll have length of days so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob; or death, in which you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. What can I get you? Life? Great. We’ll have that right out for you!”
Read MoreJesus is asking us to look outside ourselves and consider the high stakes of following Christ in our world. Jesus may be saying something more, something about the kingdom of God in the midst of the kingdoms of this world. So we might understand Jesus to be saying: Salt is either salty or it is not salt at all. A lamp gives light to the house or it is no lamp at all. If there is a hill and you can see no city upon it, then there is no city. The gospel that we or any of us proclaim is either the gospel of Jesus Christ or it is no gospel at all.
Read MoreLike many of us, I’ve always thought of the Beatitudes as comforting, maybe even a little sweet. But we can start to see that they are more like a roadmap for a much more demanding way to live - with radical compassion for everyone, with a holy grief that the world is not as it should be, and with a mandate to take up only our God-given space while keeping our egos in check.
Read MoreThe author of Matthew’s Gospel understood this connection the people had with the land and he used it to make a brilliant theological point. He wanted his readers to understand that Jesus was one of them, that they had the same people and were from the same place. He wanted them to see themselves in the narrative, to know that the story of Jesus was also a story about them. As Southerners, we are particularly gifted at placing ourselves in the geography of a narrative, so I think that we are poised to receive this message from the Gospel of Matthew: that the story of Jesus is also a story about us.
Read MoreUntil the 1979 Prayer Book, this day was called the Feast of the Circumcision (a marketing disaster). Today we call it the Feast of the Holy Name, and every single scripture reading mentions names in some form. So I can’t help but ask, what’s in a name? Or perhaps, what’s in Jesus’ name? Jesus is actually the Greek form of the Hebrew name, “Yehoshua.” In English, both names are translated as “Joshua.” The name “Yehoshua” literally means “God is salvation,” or simply, “God saves.” This is the name that God gave to the incarnate Son through the angel Gabriel. God saves.
Read MoreOn this holy night, may we all be drawn back into God’s love story. May you see that God has been throwing tiny rocks at your window to get your attention all along. But if you happen to feel less than worthy of God’s gestures, or not sure how you feel in return, or if you worry that we humans will always mess things up and wander too far away, God is not phased. The elaborate sign of love from the fiery, thundering angel is clear tonight, and impossible to miss. “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
Read MoreWhether it’s an angel getting his wings, Santa making it all the way around the world in one night, or two lovers finding each other against all odds at the eleventh hour, I love the idea that Christmas is a time when miracles are possible and expected. The Hallmark Channel may have taken this concept to the outer reaches of the spiritual realm, but at its heart, the Christmas Miracle is based in deep and powerful theology, and its story begins even before the Incarnation of Christ.
Read MoreIsaiah’s hope was based not on the fulfillment of a want but on trust—trust in the God of hope he knew would bring life and renewal in the end, the God who loved Israel and sought its good. It’s that kind of hope we are called to practice; a hope rooted in trust. Trust in the God of hope is the only hope that we can rely on, the only hope that even death cannot destroy. Isaiah saw the kingdom of Israel cut down, but he trusted that from the stump of Jesse, from the line of David, a new king would arise—one who would bring about a final healing of all things, a flourishing that would continue without end.
Read MoreThe word blessed is ubiquitous in our culture and can mean almost anything. This time of year, we most often hear it used in holiday well wishes. When someone tells us to “have a blessed day” or “have a blessed Thanksgiving,” we know that their hope for us is that we are safe and happy and have everything we could want on this special occasion. But is this what Zechariah means? When he cries out, with his first words in months, “blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,” is he simply sending holiday best wishes to God? How unfitting. How inadequate. How small that sentiment would be. Something else is going on here.
Read MoreThe choice is ours, to serve our fear or to serve a steadfast God. From time to time, an apocalypse is a powerfully good reminder not to feed the fears.
Read MoreOn this occasion of All Saints, we are invited to be ourselves by being re-membered in the fullness of God’s love. In the church year we celebrate the coming of Christ in the incarnation on Christmas, we celebrate the resurrection of Christ on Easter, and the coming of the Spirit to the Church on Pentecost. But it is on this holy day that we remember ourselves, connected to all those that have gone before us and will come after us, each of us uniquely beloved by God and belonging to one another.
Read MoreOn All Saints’ Day, we honor the communion of saints, past, present, and yet to come. And tonight, we especially hold in our hearts our loved ones who have gone before us. The Beatitudes invite us to remember that in their lives, whenever they struggled, Jesus called them blessed. And when they found themselves in the woe column, forgetting for a moment how much they needed God, Jesus loved them then, too. That prevening grace is given to all the saints.
Read MoreLuke is deliberately redirecting our focus. He wants us to see the irony of Jesus in the place of prominence despite his modest background. He wants us to feel the discomfort of standing beneath someone we usually look down on and look up to them instead. He wants us to be aware of the bodies we often overlook.
Read MoreWhat the tax collector knew and the monks sought to learn, was that they were in deep need of God’s grace and that gift was not something they could earn or accomplish however much they fasted or how many hair shirts they wore. They meditated on their sins, not to be down on themselves, but to open up an empty vessel to be filled with God’s love.
Read MoreLuke seems to have something to say about persistence. He wants us to understand that persistence, as obnoxious as it can be, has an important place in the Kingdom of God. Jesus offers today’s parable as an illustration for his disciples about their need to pray always. If this stubborn, cold, unjust judge will eventually give in to a persistent widow, imagine how our loving and gracious God will enter into the lives of those who cry out in prayer day and night.
Read MoreAn updated letter from Jeremiah to Christ Church might go something like this: “Take care of your church buildings with a master plan and worship God in them; plant a garden on the corner of 6th and Scott and eat what it produces; build your congregation and care for one another for years to come; and, seek the welfare of downtown Little Rock and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for it is in the city’s welfare that you will find your own.”
Read MoreTo have faith like a hobbit, to have faith like a mustard seed, is to live not through the strength of our own powers, but instead to join in the energies of love. It is an obedient faith, doing what love demands in the time in which we find ourselves.
Read MoreSometimes God can do things in a big, dramatic way. But most of the time, in most of our lives, the word of God comes to us not in grand spectacles but in holy, ordinary ways. Our hearts get moved. We see that our neighbor is suffering and do something to help. We hear the word of God coming through to us in the pages of scripture. We feel God’s presence on an ordinary Sunday in September.
Read MoreThis morning, Jesus tells a parable about one of these land managers. We don’t know for certain if the manager has embezzled funds, but we know he’s been accused of it, and that was enough for his boss to fire him. But he still has to present the books to the landowner. He is at the very edge of the cycle of financial oppression, and in that moment I think the manager recognizes that a crucial choice lies before him. He can go back to the grind, find another position within the system and continue to serve the wealthy, or he can choose an altogether different way of life.
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