I did not know it
Jacob is on the run, crossing border after border, fleeing from his brother who has threatened to kill him. The sun has set. His feet ache. He has to rest.…
Preacher: Isaac Villegas
Please
Grace and mercy—that God gives us what we don’t deserve, what we haven’t earned, and refuses to punish us for the wrongs we’ve done. That’s our faith, in summary. We…
Mercy
Leipzig Service for the Shenandoah Bach Festival: June 18, 2017 Jesus must have learned his prophetic ministry from his mother. She was the one who said, “The Lord has brought…
a God who could dance
Trinity Sunday “I would only believe in a god who could dance.” That’s a line from Friedrich Nietzsche. He couldn’t believe in the kind of God who looks like a…
He withdrew
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…