Covid 2: We wait
Our passage from Ezekiel opens with a vision, where the prophet is standing in the middle of a valley.He’s in the valley of the shadow of death, that place we…
Book of the Bible: Psalm
Covid 1: With me
The prophet Samuel has gone through a lot at this point in the story. If we rewind a bit, he first told the people that a king would be a…
“Do not fear, O Soil”
In this passage from the book of Joel, we hear God speaking, not to human beings, but to soil and animals. We get to eavesdrop on their conversation, to listen to the sorts of things they talk about, God and the soil, God and the animals, when they chat.
Not Forgetting
Growing up, I would at different times ask my mom, “what was the best time of your life?” I asked her this question repeatedly, year after year, I suppose always waiting to hear something different. Every single time, she’d reply, “well, my life is pretty good right now.” I just knew though, that there had to be another answer—I figured that the best time of her life had to be when she was a smooth-skinned twenty year old, her potential yet unhampered by kids and the weight of domesticity. Or maybe it was another time. Whatever the case, the best time of her life couldn’t be right then—why would it be? She always seemed to be eluding the question by not telling me about a time that lived on, resplendent in her memory, as the BEST time of her life.
Relentless love
The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, this week of all weeks, lends itself to a bewildering variety of readings, most of them bereft of good news. Here’s the Sunday…
Our feathered refuge
“They say of the Lord…” For all the strange formality of Scripture, all the Thees and Thous, all the mystifying stories, all the water-into-wine miracles and genocides and talk about…
Embarrassing generosity
Last week, Isaac preached about the dangers of coveting—of wanting to dominate the earth and its people, of craving mastery, and of being drawn in to a competition for possessions.…
Gardens
The Jeremiah writes a letter, a prophesy, to his people in exile, deported to Babylon, living among their enemies—a letter as guidance on how to survive. “Thus says the Lord…
The Lord roars
For the past several weeks, the passages have focused us on specific people, characters in the story of the Bible, individuals in leadership roles in Israel—people like Samuel and David…
O my people
“O my people.” The words from our hymn have been circling in my head ever since Eric sent me the list of songs Friday afternoon, at 2pm, in an email…