Matthew 11:2-11 I have been thinking some about ‘legacy’ these days. The sort that is left to us and the sort we leave behind as well. Maybe this is because of the ubiquitous presence of Christmas Classics… from A Christmas Carol with all of its countless remakes and the at least once annual viewing of …
A Shoot from the Stump of Jesse…
Isaiah 11:1-10 I saw a ‘shoot from the stump of Jesse’ all summer long unexpectedly blooming from a crack in my driveway. A purple petunia, a remnant seed, no doubt, from a previous summer’s planting against all odds found root and nourishment and the wherewithal to bloom in this unlikely place. I did not plant …
Telling Time… Revisited
I’m recycling an old reflection now as I just returned from vacation. I hope these thoughts from a few years back are in some way still blessing to you… Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:36-44 Quite a few years ago now I accompanied a group of soon to be high school freshmen to Confirmation Camp at Augustana …
Christ Meets Us in the Darkness…
Colossians 1:11-20 Luke 23:33-43 I experienced it just this week, you see. I saw with my own eyes what it looks like when God’s Own step into the darkness of their own hard earned struggle and pain and fear and meet Jesus there. I saw grace over a funeral lunch where individuals who once considered …
New Heavens, New Earth…
Isaiah 65:17-25 I confess now to flipping through all the possible lessons assigned for this week before settling on this one. For now, at least, I need to hear such words of resounding hope. Words which speak of a different world than the one I have found myself inhabiting in these last days. A world …
What God Has In Store: Expanding Our Imaginations
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 …