Mark 10:2-16 Before I begin, let me say I write these words with humble heart today, asking forgiveness, if needed, of those who know more of what I attempt to speak than I can possibly begin to comprehend. Even so, I am diving in here, with a certain sense that this is tender ground we walk …
Category: Lectionary
Struggling Still With This Hard Text…
Mark 9:38-50 I was called upon to officiate at a funeral last Saturday. I didn’t know the one who had died, as he was not a member of the congregation I am now serving and apparently his connection to his own congregation had waned since his wife’s death and his deteriorating health made it impossible …
A View From the Other Side of the Pulpit: The Price of Welcoming
Mark 9:30-37 I pulled into the parking lot at the community center at a little after 5 a.m. last Monday morning for the beginning of a new session of my weight training/conditioning class. It struck me that there were fewer spots available than usual but I didn’t think much about it until I climbed the …
“Taking Up Our Crosses”
Mark 8:27-38 I don’t have a story this week. What I share now is a moment, a memory, a light-bulb turning on realization I’ve never forgotten and that continues to inform my every day. It was more than 15 years ago that I found myself caught up short. We were then still keeping vigil …
“Of Sidewalk Messages and Crumbs from God’s Table”
Mark 7:24-37 A couple of months ago I was out on my early morning walk. The sun was not quite up as I headed down Meadow Lane and turned left on Borden. I don’t remember now what was on my mind that morning as I tried to pick up my pace and turn my walk into more …
“What Matters and What Doesn’t…”
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 It’s an old story, this one, and one with roots not in malice, but rather, youth and ignorance. It is when I first began to discern what mattered and what didn’t in ministry. I was a young pastor serving a small, rural church. The people there were kind and they were …
“You Have the Words of Eternal Life”
John 6: 56-69 “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life…” I almost cannot read those words without singing them. For you see, as long as I can remember I’ve been part of a community of God’s people among whom these words are sung just before the Gospel is read every …
Sharing Bread…
John 6:51-58 One could say it was a children’s sermon gone wrong. A few Sundays ago as we were talking about Jesus feeding the 5000 we did an ‘experiment.’ I had the end of a loaf of sourdough bread left from baking on Friday and we decided to pass this piece of bread among those gathered for worship …
“The Boy Next Door: On Another Senseless Shooting”
John 6:35, 41-51 In the avalanche of news about yet another mass shooting in our country — this one in a Sikh Temple south of Milwaukee — I find my mind and heart automatically travel back. For you see, it happened here in my community not that long ago. A heavily armed gunman entered a …
On Baking Bread and the Bread of Life
John 6:35, 41-51 I have been baking bread for as long as I can remember. It was a regular occurrence at the home I grew up in: the aroma of fresh baked bread. It was, I’m told, an even more regular happening in the home my mother grew up in back in the time when bread …