Waiting and Not Knowing
The Christian year turns on the axis of waiting and hoping in God. On this first Sunday of Advent, we as the church begin again by taking a posture of…
Book of the Bible: Mark
Mercy triumphs over judgement
We misrecognize. We get people wrong. We interpret the lives of others according to the ideas in our heads. We make evaluations based on our inventions of types of people.…
Woe to the shepherds
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:1) Jeremiah prophesies God’s condemnation of leaders who forsake their people, shepherds who…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
Shake the Dust Off
I don’t have an mp3 player in my car, and frankly, I’m past the stage of putting music on a disc only to have it get all scratched up. So,…
Teacher, do you not care?
Friday morning I saw a man, probably in his 40s, walking slowly up Morehead Avenue, just around the corner from my house. He was walking with his hands stretched out,…
They were afraid
Easter “They were afraid.” Those are the last words of Mark — the earliest, the oldest, of the four Gospels. Mark ends his story of Jesus with Mary Magdalene, Mary…