Luke 3:1-7 We meet up with John again every year in Advent. And we meet up with John always in the wilderness. It’s the wilderness part that has me thinking this year — remembering that the identity of the people of Israel was formed and shaped by forty years in the wilderness. Indeed, I expect that …
Category: Lectionary
A Posture of Hope
Luke 21:25-36 “Now when these things begin to take place, stand and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28) It is unexpected, it seems to me— this kind of posture in the face of the struggle described in Luke’s Gospel now. Natural disasters are all about. People are fainting out of …
Christ the King and Jesus Christ Superstar
John 18:33-37 I met a friend for a cup of tea the other day. She is going to be directing “Jesus Christ Superstar” at our local community theater in the spring and wanted to pick my brain a little bit. She told me something that surprised me — although perhaps it shouldn’t have. She told me …
No More Worries
Matthew 6:25-33 And so these words which come to us this Thanksgiving aren’t first about giving thanks, are they? No, they seem to get at gratitude’s opposite — or at least that which keeps us from being grateful, namely worry.It was a few years ago when I went to call on a member of our …
Looking in the Wrong Direction
Mark 13:1-8 A couple of weeks ago we were gathering in the classroom where we come together for Confirmation each Wednesday. Some were done with the service project earlier than others so Jim, one of our adult leaders, volunteered to wait with a handful of young people who were the first to return. I walked …
The Widow’s All
Mark 12:38-44 I spent an hour last week sitting at the foot of the bed of one of our own. Frieda was then in her last days, having lived 94 years. She was surrounded that afternoon by two sons, a grand-daughter, two great-grand-daughters, and an old friend. Not to mention the occasional ‘accidental’ visitors who …
On Cool October Breezes and All Saints’ Day Once More
John 11:32-44 It’s the ending we all hope for, isn’t it? You and I who stood at gravesides some four days or four months or four years after the dirt has filled in the gaping wound in the ground before us and grass has grown up over it — only covering up the hurt — but not …
“Messiest Pastor Ever…”
John 8:31-36 To be sure, I am not one who can speak deeply from a personal experience of ‘slavery’ — for it is not part of my own history. But then, as Jesus points out to his first listeners today, that sort of experience is not what he is speaking of at all. Rather, the …
Jesus’ Call to Servant-hood
Mark 10:35-45 “So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,and whoever wishes …
Choices
Mark 10:17-31 I am remembering today a conversation I had with my dad a long time ago. I was probably in college — home working for the summer. We were out in the garden late on a summer afternoon where he could have been leaning on a pitchfork digging up potatoes or loading tomatoes or squash …