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What, Then, Shall We Do?
I am curious about the crowds in today’s Gospel reading. Why did people stream out into the wilderness to be yelled at? To be branded a “brood of vipers,” and to be threatened with the axe, the winnowing fork, and the fire? I love the way pastor and writer Debie Thomas describes John. She calls him “the bearded…
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Sin and Salve
I’ve been thinking about a pencil. Specifically, the stolen pencil that is central in the novel James. In this book, Perceval Everett reimagines Mark Twain’s classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Using the pencil, Huck’s sidekick, the enslaved man Jim, tells his own story from his own perspective. “With my pencil,” James declares, “I wrote myself into being.” Enslaved people were, of course, forbidden…
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The Beginning of Birth Pangs
I first encountered Julian of Norwich in a college course called “The Great Conversation.” My beloved copy of Julian’s book, Revelations of Divine Love, is full of underlining and marginal notes in messy bold pen.Some of the scribbling pertains to the text; the rest of it is my side of a goofy dialogue with a friend during class. I find…
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What Do We Notice?
Throughout this fall, we’ve delved into the politics of Jesus. And in the Gospel of Mark, he has been unrelentingly focused on building a common life in which everyone can flourish. “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” “The greatest among you shall be your servant.” These statements give punch to the great command to…
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Your Faith
What is faith? This question came up last week at our meeting of the Faith Force. (formerly known as the Faith Exploration Team). Seeking to keep up with the justice league, they came up with this cool new name.Anyway . . . what is faith? This question wasn’t actually on the agenda the other night and yet pausing to probe this…
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Prophet Jesus
Back in the autumn of 1952, I took my first New Testament course at the University of Chicago. It was on the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Allen Wikgren was the instructor, an eminent scholar in the Greek New Testament. He, however, was not interested in all our student questions about Jesus Christ, and…
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Healing Our Common Life
Last weekend we gathered at the Mississippi River for something called Wild Church. A time of wandering and seeking conversation with the natural world is at the heart of a Wild Church gathering. Drawn to a patch of vibrant green grass in an area that was damp, even amid our current drought, I discovered a tiny snail. How does…
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We Belong to Each Other
What feelings does Jesus’ teaching about divorce bring up for you? Unfortunately, this text has been used as a weapon against people struggling in abusive marriages experiencing the pain of betrayal, or simply feeling stuck in relationships that aren’t life-giving. My hope today is to approach this teaching in a different spirit, with a sense of…
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Mycelial Politics
It’s pretty delightful to live across the street from an elementary school. I love the way the neighborhood comes alive with the morning and afternoon rush of pick-ups and drops-offs. I love the drone of children’s voices outside for recess—the bellows, the high-pitched screams, the little yelps of joy. I love glimpsing kids hard at work…
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Following Jesus—It’s Complicated
The passage we’ve heard read this morning from the Gospel of Mark comes at a key turning point in the story of Jesus and his followers. In the eight chapters that lead up to this moment—fully half the gospel text—Jesus has traveled about the northern regions of Jewish Palestine and ventured into its Gentile borderlands.…
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Be Opened
This fall, I am approaching the Gospel of Mark with a question in mind: what are the politics of Jesus? If you’ve been around here for a while you probably already know that despite what some say about not mixing faith and politics, I believe it is essential for the church to involve itself in…
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Wisdom
If you went to Sunday School as a child, or if you had someone who read Bible Stories to you, there are probably two things that you heard about King Solomon. (Actually there are three now, since you heard the poem about the Ants.) The first one is what we just heard: When God asked…
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Bread for the Journey
Friends, I want begin with some heartfelt gratitude. Thank you for the sacred gift of sabbatical. Thank you to those who stepped in and stepped up so that I could fully embrace this season of renewal, especially Chris, Linda, and the members of the sabbatical task force. And thank you for all the notes you left…
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Sabbatical Box
I remember the first meeting of the Sabbatical Task Force this spring. Jane, Kris Felbeck, Sandy Johnson, Paul Snyder, Mary Jean Korsmo, Linda Valerian, and I gathered in the Parlor to brainstorm ideas for how to make this time of Jane’s absence special for the community. I remember the energy in that room, that as…
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Wisdom and Wind
In about two weeks I will be done with seminary. Not long after that I will receive a piece of paper in the mail saying that I have been awarded the degree of Master of Divinity—a name that really needs to change, because if there’s one thing that’s literally impossible for a person to master,…
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Where Can We Rest?
You can blame my Hebrew Bible professor for our theme this month. I distinctly remember him saying, “You never hear anybody preach on the Wisdom Literature, but there’s so much good stuff in there! It’s so relevant to our world today!” I’ll admit that I heard those words as a challenge. When Doug Donnelly and…
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Navigating Divine Fate Using a Compass of Joy
Ecclesiastes urges us to examine meaninglessness in order to arrive at joy; how can we navigate that process with integrity to God and ourselves? “Vanity of vanities, it is all vanity.” So starts off the book of Ecclesiastes, and it sure sounds like a great opening. This book is part of the section of biblical…
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Things Work Until They Don’t
Good morning. I’m Paula Moyer, a member of University Baptist Church and one of the substitutes filling in for Pastor Doug Donley during his medical leave. Full disclosure: I am nowhere close to being ordained and have no plans to do so. Therefore, I am deeply honored to be preaching today for the first of…
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Soften or Sharpen
There is an Israeli woman named Ada Sagi, an elderly woman, who lived in a kibbutz before October 7 of last year. She taught Arabic to Israelis so they would be able to talk with their Arab neighbors. She wanted there to be peace. But then she was taken hostage by Hamas. By the time…
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God’s Planting
This week I read an article by Presbyterian minister and church consultant Sarai Rice entitled, “Imagining a New Model for the Church.”[1] Rice notes a tension between the theological language we use to describe ourselves as church and the ways we actually organize church institutions. On the theological hand, we call ourselves the body of Christ,…