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 …
Tag: John
“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 …
“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 …
“Starving One’s Body to Feed One’s Soul”
John 6:24-35 I heard this said a while back and it has stayed with me: When serving a meal, the host with the fewest material resources will ask if her guests have had enough to eat… That those who call themselves “middle class” will wonder about how the meal tasted… And that those on the high …
On Barbeque Grills and a Boy’s Lunch
John 6:1-21 Several years ago I served on a bishop’s staff. It was early on the Friday morning of the first Synod Assembly he would preside over. For such gatherings one always wants things to go smoothly, but never more than the first one. The evening before we had been out to dinner with staff …
It’s No Wonder Nicodemus Wondered…
John 3:1-17 A couple of days back I stopped at the cemetery. Fifteen years after he died we finally got around to getting a Veteran’s marker for my dad’s grave. Perhaps you know what I’m talking about — the kind you simply push into the ground that holds a flag. I stopped by as I …
Oneness
John 17:6-19 “Holy Father, protect them in your name so that they may be one as we are one.” (John 17:11) The unity Jesus speaks of here is all too rare it seems to me. I’m tempted to say that’s a rather recent phenomenon, but I know better. Whether it’s in the church or in …