Sunday, September 8, 2019 | Reflections
Like many people, I struggle to live outside my own head. I find it easier to accept what the church teaches about Jesus than to make those ideas physically manifest in my life. Following Jesus and doing what he does takes a lot more effort than merely admiring him or...
Saturday, September 7, 2019 | Reflections
After two millennia, most Christians seem to have taken James’s advice to heart and have become very patient about the return of Jesus. I rarely encounter any real sense of urgency around mission or evangelism rooted in an imminent sense of Christ’s return. Without a...
Friday, September 6, 2019 | Reflections
When I was eleven, I was the target of a bully. I walked two miles out of my way to avoid going past his house on my way home from school. I withdrew from life and friends because I was afraid. Finally, with the support of adults who loved me, my bully problem was...
Thursday, September 5, 2019 | Reflections
Like the psalmist, we might proclaim that nice guys finish first, but many of us secretly harbor a preference for the rascals. We have aphorisms that reinforce this notion: If you can’t beat them, join them! You have to fight fire with fire. We say Everyone does it!...
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 | Reflections
“I hate you!” I could hardly believe the words spilling from my child’s mouth. How could someone so loved and cared for offer such unkindness? But I once said the same to my parents, and most parents I know have been on both ends of this dreaded interaction. We can...
Tuesday, September 3, 2019 | Reflections
On several occasions when I was younger, eager evangelists showed up at my door asking if I had accepted Christ. I discovered that if I answered, “No, but I’d like to,” they would offer some prayer I was to repeat and then be on their way to scout for another...
Monday, September 2, 2019 | Reflections
I’ve never wanted to be a martyr—who would? Yet I remember looking around in chapel one day during seminary and seeing a plaque honoring a former student who was martyred in New Guinea during World War II. How different were we, really? Two students separated only by...
Sunday, September 1, 2019 | Reflections
I once worked at a parish that hosted a weekly meal for our neighbors—many were poor, many were homeless. We served the meal family style, with parish leaders sitting at tables with our neighbors. Other churches and community groups took turns cooking and….(View...
Saturday, August 31, 2019 | Reflections
Liturgical Christians often relegate this story to Palm Sunday and Holy Week where it temporally belongs. How unnerving to have it pop up here like an unwelcome guest at a birthday party. But it never hurts to remind ourselves that Jesus suffers as we do and is...
Friday, August 30, 2019 | Reflections
I would wager that if you asked 100 people to tell you something they know about Paul, not one of them would say he was a healer. Agitator, preacher, orator, persecutor, letter-writer—sure…but a healer? We can never know the completeness of another pers….(View...
Thursday, August 29, 2019 | Reflections
Even the great King Solomon had days when he was just managing administrative details. Maybe he kept office hours during which his subjects could bring their arguments and complaints. On this day, two women have brought a tricky problem to the king. It’s a case of she...
Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | Reflections
God’s words come to us in myriad ways. Anyone who has heard God’s still, small voice nudging the soul has heard the word of God. The joyful sensation we feel in communion with other Christians is God working in us. God’s word can also come to us in the counsel of wise...
Tuesday, August 27, 2019 | Reflections
Paul has been in prison at Caesarea for two years, and he is in what seems to be a constant state of self-defense. And yet Paul is always telling the story of Jesus of Nazareth. He will not be deterred. Agrippa himself accuses Paul of trying to convert him....
Monday, August 26, 2019 | Reflections
Again, the daily readings are a festival of intrigue. Bathsheba and Nathan scheme against a pretender to David’s throne. Paul continues his self-defense arguments, this time in front of Agrippa. And in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ mood is positively apocalyptic....
Sunday, August 25, 2019 | Reflections
Unlike some of us, Jesus does not discriminate. He offers healing and fellowship willy-nilly to all who come along and ask—and even to those who don’t ask for it. Jesus’ decision to heal a woman on the Sabbath is one of many actions that keep getting ….(View...
