-
Feeling the Woe
The poet Rumi says, “This being human is a guest house.” He encourages us to show hospitality to the full range of our feelings and experiences. Today I want to consider what it means to “welcome and entertain” today’s text from Luke, especially the woes. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received…
-
Keep Calm and Fish On
There are two kinds of people: those who know how to catch fish and those who don’t. It seems fishing knowledge is usually passed through families—going out in the boat with a parent or grandparent is a rite of passage. I did not grow up in a fishing family. I remember the time my dad…
-
The Thread
How are you feeling about what’s going on in our country? Anyone grieving, afraid, overwhelmed, despairing? What about rage? What is making you angry right now? Rage is all around us. Our president is tapping into the rage of people who have been suffering economically, people who have felt left out and unheard, people who are disoriented by…
-
Hospitality’s Shadow Side
I’ve got to hand it to Jane and the Worship Team, the selection of Hospitality as the theme for Epiphany this year is certainly on the nose. Especially this week. Could there be a clearer contrast between the Christian—indeed, the universal spiritual significance placed on hospitality and the first wave of executive orders that blared…
-
“Party” Jesus!
At Bible study this week, Mercedes reflected that she had never really heard this morning’s Gospel story in full. All she knew was that Jesus had turned water into wine. She said she always imagined it happened in some “holy” way removed from regular life. And she was delighted to hear it was at a…
-
Spirit Baptism?
One of the most prominent characters in the Gospel of Luke is the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit overshadows Mary so that she becomes pregnant and inspires her to sing about how God will turn the world upside down. The Spirit enters Jesus in his baptism, then drives him out into the wilderness for…
-
The Light Shining in the Darkness
Today is a time of transitions. Today is the Twelfth Day, the end of Christmas time; and yet today we also celebrate Epiphany Sunday, the moment we linger over Christ’s move from infancy, through boyhood and into his adult ministry. Biblical time and liturgical seasons have their own clocks and calendars, their own ways of…
-
Holy Vulnerability
I don’t know about you, but I find that the beloved nativity story from Luke is so familiar to my ears that I have a hard time really hearing it. How many of us, like Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas, could rattle off this narrative from memory? It can begin to feel a bit like…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
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…