John 18:1-19:42 Some of you will know that I began going to a chiropractor last fall. We think it was the result of a fall last June, but for some reason I didn’t feel it until later. By the end of October I was unable to turn to the right without significant pain. I had …
Category: Lectionary
Shredded: Some Thoughts for Maundy Thursday
I waited in line for nearly an hour last Saturday afternoon. It was ‘Community Shred Day’ at our local credit union, you see, and I had shredding to do. My mother retired from teaching third grade twenty-one years ago this spring. All these years she has kept the grade-books from her last ten years in …
The Mind of Christ
Philippians 2:5-11 I sat down with a group of leaders in a congregation a few months ago. This particular place, like many, has had its share of struggles. Indeed, those people who had come together that night shared that the congregation as a whole just wasn’t very ‘nice.’ They were, by then sitting on fifty …
Dying and Living and a Late Winter’s Cold
John 12:20-33 I came down with a cold two days after Ash Wednesday this year. I confess to feeling a little smug that it had not taken me down earlier. Well, maybe not exactly smug — but certainly grateful and surprised. Everyone around me had fallen to the nasty germ and somehow I had escaped. …
Light and Darkness
John 3:14-21 I find myself remembering Lyle this week-end. Lyle was a member of my first congregation. He was number seven or eight in a line of children — all then in their late 60’s or 70’s, all still living, and for the most part, all still living within reach of one another. He was …
Fresh Eyes: Jesus Cleansing the Temple
John 2:13-22 Like many of you, my attention has been captured in these last days by the matter of ‘the dress.’ You know the one I’m talking about: that one which is making its rounds on the internet these days and has captured the imagination of early morning news hosts. That dress which is clearly …
Picking Up My Cross: How Shall I Die?
Mark 8:31-38There has been this ‘opportunity’ floating around Face Book lately. If you follow the provided link and insert your name and the year of your birth, you will be given a photograph of a gravestone like this: I’ve done it a couple of times and while the year is always the same, the cause …
More Than Enough in Wilderness Times
Mark 1:9-15 On my day off this week I installed a new toilet paper holder. Now you should know I’m not the handiest person around. While I can accomplish some simple household tasks, it always takes an extra measure of effort and concentration. I was prompted to do this only because my old toilet paper …
Listen to Him!
Mark 9:2-9 My mother got hearing aids last month. By her own admission, it has been a wonderful enhancement of her life — making it possible for her to interact in social situations which were becoming increasingly difficult. Unlike for some, the adjustment has been an easy one for her, although she is still sometimes …
Simon’s Mother-in-Law: An Exquisite Awareness
Mark 1:29-39 I find I get stuck in the first half of the lesson before us now… wondering at Simon’s Mother-in-Law and her immediate response to Jesus’ healing. I get stuck there, I suppose, because in some small way it is familiar to me even across this expanse of time and space and culture. For …