Luke 20:27-38 We had come together then to scatter the remains of a beloved mother and grandmother and great grandmother. The late October snow that had fallen a few days before had mostly melted and the ground was simply glistening in the sunshine under the willow tree her family had chosen as her final resting …
All Saints Sunday: Standing Still in the Mystery
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18 Ephesians 1:11-23 Luke 6:20-31 For me at least, All Saints Sunday has always been more about mystery than dogma. More about the familiar strains of poetry and the strident, or haunting, or jaunty melodies than about any well reasoned theological statement or argument. “Behold a host arrayed in white…” “For all the …
Truth and Freedom
John 8:31-36 I visited at the prison this week. I had meant to go sooner, but other demands got in the way. This week a friend, a fellow pastor, was making the trip and she asked if I wanted to go as well. I did. If you have been tagging along with me for a …
Wrestling All Night… And More
Genesis 32:22-31 This ancient story still speaks, doesn’t it? I expect that is because we have all found ourselves exactly where Jacob finds himself today: wresting all night long. Only in my experience, the wrestling doesn’t usually end with the break of dawn. Or at least not the first break of dawn. And yet, by …
On Gratitude and Wholeness
Luke 17:11-19 One’s attention is naturally drawn to the Samaritan in the story before us now. At first the ten are all of a group: All stricken by the same deadly disease. All drawn together by a fate that erased the differences which had separated them before this awful diagnosis. All desperate enough to call …
All That You Need: On Faith and Mustard Seeds
Luke 17:5-10 It has been blooming from a crack in my driveway all summer long. I did not plant it there, of course, but I have often planted petunias along the driveway side of my house just a few feet away. Even so, it is not the sort of plant which survives the winter — …
“Lazarus” at My Front Door…
Luke 16:19-31 I can still picture my dad leaning back in his chair with his hands tented together in that philosophical pose he took from time to time. I smiled then and still do to remember him so, knowing that whenever those fingers came together in that way he was about to say something he …
Living Our Faith In This Messy World
Luke 16:1-13 Dear Friends, As I write this week I realize that I am only at the beginning of my thinking about this difficult parable. These past days have been full of meetings and hospital calls and as the week drew to a close I came down with a nasty bug which, I don’t doubt, …
Who is the Lost One?
Luke 15:1-10 I have reflected on the words of Luke in chapter 15 countless times. To be sure, here are links here to two other times I have offered thoughts on these very familiar words. Getting Lost and Getting Found: Joy in the Presence of the Angels! and Lost and Found This time through, I …
Paul’s Pastoral Heart: Philemon, Onesimus, and More…
Philemon 1-21 I got drawn into the letter to Philemon this week, in part because its place in our readings next Sunday offers us the chance to reflect on an entire book of the Bible. Unlike Paul’s other letters, its succinctness allows us to focus on one or two important things and to wonder together …