3/15/2021

Life is filled with stones: stone of injustice, stone of inequality, stone of prejudice, stone of violence, stone of partisanship, stone of poverty … stone, stone, stone! Everywhere we look there seems to be a stone, something blocking our way.

2/10/2021

This year the heart of Lent falls in March, and the lectionary readings invite us to contemplate the mystery of God’s self-giving and the meaning of sacrifice. Every religion has its particular and peculiar insight into the holy. At the heart of the Christian insight are the incarnation and the cross. Both the birth and death of Jesus reveal the giving of God’s own self to us, to the world. Jesus’ life and ministry, and especially his suffering and death demonstrate the full measure of God’s generous self-giving. This is what we encounter as we read the scriptures. It is what we experience each time we come to the Lord’s Table – the life of God poured out and broken for us.

2/8/2021

Calder Pickett, the History of Journalism professor at the University of Kansas, edited a compendium of famous sayings, quotes, statements of Americans over the last 200 years. He entitled the book “Voices from the Past.” He shared in class that he wanted to have a resource that will highlight the incredible power of words that really changed history.

1/22/2021

God was as present with the prophets along the ways as God was present in the whirlwind. God was as present beyond the river as God was in the biblically memorable places where they stopped along the way.

So, too, God is as present between us as God would be present to us in some form of a divine whirlwind. Our most sacred places are made holy not by name or fame or even by mysterious chariots of fire; but made holy by the presence of God. Unexpected, ordinary places, are made holy by God’s transforming presence in our lives.

1/19/2021

12/15/2020

Competing claims about what is true inundated us in 2020. Both message and messenger were doubted. The sheer volume and velocity of information overwhelm. This new year will, doubtless, be the same. We pray things will be better, but we are realists, and knowing human hearts and human nature, words and motives are weaponized. Yet, again and again, God’s people seek a word from the Lord. Whenever and wherever God speaks, powerful things happen – sometimes seen, oftentimes, not; sometimes immediate, oftentimes, not. Nevertheless, when we dare utter, “The Lord says. . .” or in the old King James Version, “Thus saith the Lord. . .” we had better do so sparingly and humbly and we had better double-check and triple-check that, indeed, “Thus saith the Lord” and then pay careful attention to what exactly the Lord saith. And we would do well to urge and encourage all those who are with us to, likewise, pay attention to what the Lord saith. Many a person have claimed “Thus saith the Lord” and used that as a bludgeon to lord over others some nefarious intent or unwittingly (and wittingly) claimed “Thus saith the Lord” when the Lord neither saith nor was it thus so.

12/11/2020

11/16/2020

A presidential impeachment. Stories and videos of children ripped from their parents’ arms at the U.S. southern border. The death of Breonna Taylor. COVID-19. The death of Ahmaud Arbery. The death of George Floyd. The shooting of Jacob Blake. The raging fires in California, Oregon, Washington State. The bomb explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Report on human rights violations in the Philippines. Students may or may not return to school this semester. US death toll due to COVID-19 surpasses 200,000. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, among others, are infected with COVID-19. Only one indictment in the case of Breonna Taylor’s death, though the charge against just one officer is unrelated to Breonna Taylor’s death. And by the time this lectionary preview is published, the U.S. presidential general election will have been decided. Maybe. Unless there are challenges after challenges.

11/13/2020

11/9/2020

10/19/2020

10/14/2020