Luke 11:1-13 I was running errands for my mother this week. I had made a stop at the grocery store. On her list was watermelon and they were out of it so I decided to try another store. As I walked towards the entrance I noticed a large black dog wearing a brown scarf around …
Category: Lectionary
An Owner’s Manual for Missionaries
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 I purchased a ‘new’ used car last week. My old one was starting to show its 114,000 miles and it was time. When I got home I pulled out the owner’s manual. Never mind that it’s the same make and model as my last car, things change in 7 years. I smiled …
No Turning Back
Luke 9:51-62 Every time this Gospel text rolls around, I find myself annoyed by it for what Jesus has to say today makes no sense to me at all. I mean, truly, what is this business about the dead burying their own dead? And then I remembered… It was the summer before I was to …
Truth That Catches Us
John 16:12-15 “Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” (John 16:12-13) “The truth is a snare: you cannot have it without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a …
Pentecost: Oh How the Holy Spirit Still Moves
Acts 2:1-21 I am remembering now a time when I discovered how difference in language can be so symbolic of all that can separate us one from another. It has always been so, of course, and it is what makes the Pentecost Story before us now so very wondrous. Now this story goes way back. I was working corn …
The Nearness of the Kingdom: Jesus Goes, Too
Luke 21:25-36 I spent several hours in the E.R. the other night — this time not because I had been called. No, instead, I was on the other side. I’ll spare you the details, but I was suffering a severe gall bladder attack. After they diagnosed it and addressed my pain, they sent me home …
A King Like No Other
John 18:33-37 I has been ringing through my mind these last days — the cry of the people in 1 Samuel. You remember it. They are in the land which was promised to them. They have been watched over and led by a series of Judges — some of whom did better than others. And …
The Beginning of the Birth Pangs
Mark 13:1-8 The world ended that day. With that phone call. That startling news.That deepening realization. The world ended that day. Or at least it ended as you had known it. I am so deeply aware of this right now for I am in the midst of a stretch of funerals. Some expected. Others not. …
Seeing the Widow
Mark 12:38-44 Truly, my whole life — including the years I have served as a pastor — I have heard the story of the widow in Mark’s Gospel as a story of sacrificial giving. It is a story about generosity. It is an image of one who gave all that she had. This drama and …
All Saints Day: Claiming the Easter Promise
Isaiah 25:6-9John 11:32-44 For as long as I have been a pastor, I have loved All Saints Day. In some years, I have made the time to walk through a local cemetery — returning to those places I have frequented in the months past. Other years, time just gets away from me or the weather …