Ascension Day What did Jesus want? In thinking about this scene from the end of Luke’s Gospel, the ascension of Jesus, I’m wondering if this is what he wanted. This departure, this exit. “Lifting up his hands,” it says, “he blessed them. While he blessed them, he withdrew and was carried into heaven” (Luke 24:50-51). […]
A Contaminated Christ
In our New Testament reading for today, Paul is talking about the wisdom of God. It’s one of Paul’s homerun passages: the classic paradox of God choosing the weak and despised things of the world as the vehicles of wisdom. Throughout these beginning chapters of 1st Corinthians, he contrasts the wisdom of the world and […]
I am the gate
A few years ago I worked sporadically as a farmhand down the road in Efland. Most days I helped pick vegetables, gather eggs, and pitch in with whatever chores were on hand. Fickle Creek Farm is fairly small, with a wide variety of crops and livestock and a resulting bevy of tasks that change with […]
the burning within
“Stay with us” (Luke 24:32). That’s what Cleopas and the other disciple say to the stranger on the road—the stranger who they finally recognize as Jesus when he takes their bread, blesses it, breaks it, and feeds them in what appears to be a kind of Communion meal. Stay with us. It’s what we all […]
Alive
Second Sunday of Easter Last week, on Easter Sunday, Isaac talked about Mary, the first preacher, about Jesus’ noncoercive call, and about naming. I carried this message about the mother of our faith around with me this week as I thought about the message Mary brings to the disciples, about what happens next, when Jesus […]
Mary Magdalene, mother of our Easter faith
Easter John 20, verse 1: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” it says, “Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed.” It was still dark. The dark night of Good Friday lingered into Easter morning, two days after his death. And Mary […]
Feet
Holy Thursday, 2017 This morning, in the parking lot of La Superior grocery store in Durham, I washed feet as part of a service of solidarity for members of our immigrant community. There a young girl, maybe eight years old—I can’t remember how many times I washed her feet. She kept on getting in line, […]
Who is this?
Matthew 21, verse 10: “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” That’s what the people ask—the shopkeepers on the corner, the residents scurrying through the city on errands, pilgrims on their way to the Temple, children playing in the streets, servants preparing dinner, peering from a window, wondering […]
We are not blind, are we?
“Surely we are not blind, are we?” (John 9:40). That’s what the Pharisees, the city leaders, ask at the end of the story, after they’ve spent a long chapter questioning a young man whose sight has been healed—the leaders questioning everyone who has anything to do with him, blaming the man’s parents, condemning Jesus, accusing […]
What do I love when I love my enemy?
What do I love when I love my enemy? This question echoes Saint Augustine’s: “What do I love when I love my God?” To hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, neither question can be answered without the other being asked. Both must be asked together and answered together. What do I love when I love […]
We are the ones
Micah chapter six, verse 1: “Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.” That’s how it feels—today, this month, this weekend as the president told us his plan to build more walls at Mexico’s border, as he ramped up efforts to deport undocumented residents, as he ordered discrimination against […]
Follow me
“Jesus left Nazareth,” it says, “and made his home in Capernaum by the sea” (Matthew 4:13). Jesus makes a home. He settles into a community for a while. Probably making and selling some furniture, since he’s a carpenter after all. Maybe he builds a few barns, boats, a house or two. Soon the neighbors start […]
Who needs an epiphany?
[This sermon was prepared for January 8, 2017, but icy streets kept us from worshiping that day. It was given on January 15.] When Neftali gave the sermon about two months ago he was careful to make sure that the words of the Bible passage could be understood by the children in the mid-years of […]
Mary, our theologian
“Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Her heart. We glimpse Mary’s heart in our Bible passage today. A glimmer of her inner life, of what she thinks about, of what will flash through her thoughts over the years, the thirty-three years, as her child grows from infant in […]
Undone
Advent 2 John appears near Jerusalem, with bugs in his teeth from his locust meals, with the wild in his eyes, howling at the world to repent. A voice crying out from the wilderness, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). Something happened to John the Baptist, drawing him into the […]
Advent at night
Advent 1 Sometimes, in the morning, when I’m waking up, I find myself in a dream world where everything is as it should be, a world without pain and sorrow, a world full of joy and peace: swords turned into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks. And even though I know I’m waking up, I want […]
Shepherds Who Shepherd
Today is “Reign of Christ” Sunday, a fact that feels both timely and unsettling. This Sunday comes around every year, one moment in the cycle of time Christians inhabit, before we circle back into Advent once again. But this year, today, the world looks different. This is neither the first nor the last time preachers […]
Nation against nations
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Dreadful portents. Signs from heaven. This part of the Bible, this passage from the Gospel of Luke, is called “the little apocalypse.” The word apocalypse means unveiling, uncovering, revelation, the truth exposed. The day after the election, in the neighborhood up the hill from our house, […]
Gratitude has made you well
“As Jesus entered a village, ten lepers approached him, keeping their distance” (Luke 17:12). These ten people aren’t even called people. They aren’t even acknowledged as human beings. They are called lepers. They are known as lepers. Their identity is leper. They are sick with a disease that made them outcasts. But, with Jesus, the […]
Tears becoming words
Last week during Sunday School, one of the kids asked a question that I’ve been thinking about all week, especially during a week like this one. We asked our class of 6 and 7 year olds what they wanted to learn about this year, what questions should we wrestle with—curiosities about God, about church, and […]
Break the chains
Jeremiah, chapter 32, verse 2: “At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard.” The people are in captivity. Jeremiah is under arrest. There is no hope. On the horizon, as far as the eye can see into the […]
Life-giving debt
Mary Oliver’s poem, entitled Moments, makes me think of this week’s gospel text. Let me read it for us, and we’ll see what we can see: There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.Like, telling someone you love them.Or giving your money away, all of it.Your heart is beating, isn’t it?You’re not in chains, […]
The burden of care
When I looked over the scriptures for this week in preparation to preach, I found that the Exodus passage and the Luke passage presented an astonishing juxtaposition. The Exodus scene has God downright disgusted by the Israelites he led into the wilderness. The Israelites, perhaps out of impatience and boredom, created a golden calf to […]
Let mutual love continue
Opening prayer: “Eternal Spirit, Draw us together in this hour and help us to expand the circle of those whom we reach in love.” The author of the book of Hebrews is unknown, so much so that some scholars do not even have anybody to suggest. However, it is nonetheless carefully and deeply argued. Consider […]