Monday, April 30, 2018 | Reflections
What happened on the Cross? And what happened afterward? Here we are deep in Easter season, and we all feel safe again. Those dark days between Maundy Thursday and Easter Vigil are over. Christ Jesus did come back, rise again, and the reserve Sacrament isn’t all that...
Monday, April 30, 2018 | Reflections
Having a pocket-sized God is handy—we can take God out when we want or put God away when we don’t. We can tell God where to go and what to do and how to do it. When Paul and Barnabas work signs and wonders in Lystra, the crowds believe they must be gods. Imagine the...
Monday, April 30, 2018 | Reflections
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Sunday, April 29, 2018 | Reflections
As a campus ministry intern, I had to come to terms with my deep displeasure at working in groups. I tried to do my thing myself, my way. But this came across as being hurtful and dismissive of the community I was serving. Fortunately, we were able to find a way to...
Saturday, April 28, 2018 | Reflections
As the stories of the apostles in Acts make clear, evangelism has never been an easy mission. Fears of rejection, failure, and offending others are very real. So much prevents the hearing of this message of good news. It can feel like we live in a world whose values...
Saturday, April 28, 2018 | Reflections
Words are fascinating things. I remember Mama reading to me when I was little and couldn’t read for myself. The stories were great, with the sound of her voice changing the black marks on the page to adventures and heroes. I learned to read in the first grade,...
Saturday, April 28, 2018 | Reflections
Religion doesn’t happen in buildings. That’s one of the hardest things for people to get, I think. And it’s mainly because religion itself has become so concerned with cathedrals, grand mosques, and ornate synagogues. There’s nothing wrong with those things. In fact,...
Friday, April 27, 2018 | Reflections
Pride places us at the center of our own lives. Pride can manifest itself by depending solely on ourselves at the expense of family or intimate relationships or in busyness that prevents us from engaging spiritual disciplines. Pride can result in us taking ownership...
Friday, April 27, 2018 | Reflections
Readings for the feast day of Christina Rossetti, Friday, April 27, 2018: Psalm 84 Exodus 3:1-6 Revelation 21:1-4 Matthew 6:19-23 One of my favorite stories told by one of my fellow missioners to the Diocese of Lui in South Sudan was of being there in...
Thursday, April 26, 2018 | Reflections
Preaching the gospel often results in trouble for the apostles. Later in Acts, they will be described as “turning the world upside down.” When Herod’s fear of the Jesus Movement leads him to imprison Peter, no doubt Herod assumes prison walls can stem the tide of the...
Thursday, April 26, 2018 | Reflections
Matthew 5:21-26 I just made a phone call this morning that I have been dreading for a couple of weeks. I did not have a conversation, I left a message. But already I feel a little better. The person I called is someone to whom I made a promise that I...
Wednesday, April 25, 2018 | Reflections
We are a family. We are incredibly connected to one another, even if at times we fail to live into that relationship with integrity, and even if at times we would like our relationship to be different or to not even exist. Nevertheless, we are connected across oceans,...
Wednesday, April 25, 2018 | Reflections
Immediately, suddenly, Mark wrote a gospel! When I was in college studying the New Testament for the first time, I was introduced to Mark as the author of the earliest, shortest, and least likely gospel to earn its evangelist an A for his composition skills. He was...
Tuesday, April 24, 2018 | Reflections
Lord, The world is rushing by Sights and sounds vying for my attention People walking and running in a hurry Cars zooming from here to there. The days seem long But I know the years are short. My hands constantly connected to my phone. Scrolling...
Tuesday, April 24, 2018 | Reflections
“Make a way out of no way.” This phrase has been kept close in the prayers and petitions of many in the African-American community for decades, harkening all the way back to the days of slavery. The children of Israel held in bondage in Egypt knew deep in their bones...
