Jesus desires. He insists on himself. At least, this is the Jesus we find in our gospel reading this week. This Jesus knows what he wants, and he pleads for it, our mother hen longing to gather us in, for her beloved to be with her where she is. Jesus yearning for the pleasures of […]
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Clean
When his friends found out that Peter was eating with gentiles, he told them a story, the story of his revelation from God. Peter explained it to them step by step. The key line is verse 9, after Peter tells God that “nothing profane or unclean has ever entered [his] mouth.” Then it says, “But […]
The Adhan and Ma’an lil-Hayat
Revelation 5:13, “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing…” Psalm 30:4, “Sing praises to the Lord, O you faithful ones, and give thanks to God’s holy name.” Last week I stayed in a refugee camp in […]
Dancing in the Dust
Easter Sunday “For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.” These words […]
washing with love
Fifth Sunday of Lent They say, when reading a Bible passage, that you should find yourself in the story, that you should try on one of the characters. See which one fits the best. So I did that a few times this week, with this passage for today, and I think I’m in trouble, because […]
My soul thirsts, my flesh faints
On Monday mornings I used to park my car on the service road along 15/501, there in front of the storage facility and Swedish Imports mechanic. I’d walk down to the end of the road, down a dirt path that cut through bushes and shrubs, winding around the skeletons of refrigerators and washing machines devoured […]
Behold the beauty
In the middle of the prison I visit, at the center of the compound, between the housing units, there’s a vast lawn with concrete walkways running through it. The prisoners are not allowed to spend time out there, not allowed to enjoy the grass, the sun, the open space, but they do walk those paths […]
The Context of Confession
Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. My first brush with Ash Wednesday came ages ago when I was at Purdue University. One day a friend of mine appeared with a very visible gray mark on his forehead, and I called it to his attention, thinking it should be removed. He informed […]
This terrible vulnerability
On the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the church typically hears scriptures and sermons about the Transfiguration, that occasion when Peter, James, and John go up on a mountain with Jesus and some rather strange events occur. However, the CHMF worship calendar—in either a mistaken or inspired move—scheduled the readings for today to be those for […]
Absurd, ridiculous, miraculous signs
I realize that I am dating myself with the description, but I am old enough to remember spinning my favorite album without a trace of irony, and with no notions of superior sound quality. I had an early 80s standard issue Fisher Price record player, about the size and shape of a small briefcase, a […]
like a dove
Four years ago I was in a bad car accident. My body hurt all the time, for months. Muscle spasms, throbbing pain everywhere. I couldn’t think of anything but the pain. I remember one Sunday, here at church, I asked for prayer, because I was overwhelmed, and after we all closed our eyes, and as […]
He grew
Advent builds with expectation—and after four weeks of Advent, four weeks of anticipation, four weeks of waiting, there’s a celebration, the celebration of the birth date of Jesus, the excitement of Christmas day. The incarnation is special. There’s so much there to capture our imagination, so much mystery and beauty there, when God becomes human, […]
The bread of tears
Fourth Sunday of Advent A verse from our Psalm for today, this fourth Sunday of Advent: “You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure” (Ps 80:5). Tears flow like a stream through the pages of our Scriptures, sometimes turning into a river in books like […]
Unconventional Homemaking
This is my first advent preaching and I really wanted to talk about Mary, about how beautiful she is and how she’s joyfully, but humbly carrying God. I was going to make a bunch of poetic comments about the waters of her womb and the waters Isaiah talks about. I wanted desperately to avoid the […]
For you I wait all day long
First Sunday of Advent There’s a book I’ve been reading lately, and I’ve decided that it’s basically an Advent book—a book about Advent, because it’s all about waiting. That’s actually the title: Waiting. It’s about some toys—these little creatures here on the windowsill—who do a lot of waiting. [Several excerpts from the book] “They saw […]
Warmth of the saints
All Saints Sunday Jesus gets there too late. He gets to Lazarus too late. “Lord,” Mary says—this is Lazarus’s sister Mary—she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). If only Jesus got there in time, a week earlier, then he would have been able to lay his […]
What does love remember?
At the beginning of the story, the story of Job, at the beginning of the book, Job has it all—wealth, possessions, family, perfect health. Then it’s all take from him. All of it. Oxen and donkeys, sheep and camels, sons and daughters, and he’s afflicted with sores, sores all over his body, and he sits […]
Fire and flame are your ministers
I’m sitting there, trying to write this sermon, getting some decent thoughts on the page, typing away, me and my computer, along with everyone else and their computers, their books, their lattes—a bright day, a flood of sunshine cooled by a fall breeze. Then a song comes on, one of those songs that dazes you, […]
If only
Rabbi Akiva said: “Had the Torah not been given, the Song of Songs would have sufficed to guide the world” (quoted in Gillian Rose, Paradiso, 15). The Song of Songs to guide the world, to guide us in this world. No need for the Torah; no need for the Law—the loves songs of Solomon would […]
on divorce
Bring his head on a plate, sighed King Herod. And moments later, John the Baptist was beheaded, to please the whim of a dancing girl, to appease the vengeful heart of Herod’s second wife, who hated John for calling out Herod on his divorce and remarriage to Herodias. It may be that the Pharisees who […]
If the Lord is for us
If the Lord had not been for us –let Israel repeat it— If the Lord had not been for us when there arose against us: people, then alive they would have swallowed us in their burning rage against us. Then the waters would have engulfed us, a torrent sweeping over us, body and soul, then […]
Praise Her at the City Gates
Over the last ten years or so I’ve been unlearning the interpretation of Proverbs 31 that I grew up with, a reading that governed much of my adolescence and young adult life, as it does for so many girls in traditions that are concerned with raising godly women, ushering them into carefully defined and controlled […]
We, too, dislike it
A painting, titled, The Descent from the Cross, an oil painting on oak paneling, a famous work of fifteenth-century religious art — roughly 7 feet by 8 ½ feet — depicts the drama Jesus foretells in our gospel text.[1] You see the cross, the wood that once suspended Jesus’ body in the air, where his dying […]
Precious and lovely
What is this life for? What’s your life for? [personal story about a friend diagnosed with cancer] So I’ve been thinking about what life is for, this precious life: so brief and so breakable. These bodies, these friendships, these jobs, this family, all of it our lives—we have these fragile lives, and they crumble, never […]