Last week I happened across a video satire of some of the many distortions of Christianity that are rampant in popular culture. The fictional protagonist was having a conversation with Jesus, in which she was correcting his message. She insisted that he focused far too much on healing and helping and sharing with the poor, and suggested … Read the rest
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Persevere in Hope
What a way to begin ministry together! Consider the stories of faith we’ve heard this morning: a deceitful patriarch Jacob getting his hip put out of joint while wrestling with God, and a strict Paul admonishing his protégé Timothy to suffer for the sake of the Gospel. And then there’s that peevish judge in Jesus’ parable, who … Read the rest
Continue reading "Persevere in Hope" »The Name You Know
Several years ago, when I was a brand new priest serving on the staff of the bishop of the Diocese of California, I was asked to be the spiritual director for a weekend retreat. The retreat, an extension of well-established prison ministry, was designed for women whose husbands or … Read the rest
Continue reading "The Name You Know" »Dangerous Eating
It’s all about the meals, according to New Testament scholar Robert Karris. In his book “Eating your Way through Luke’s Gospel,” he points out that Jesus almost always seems to be either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. And in the Gospel we just heard, Jesus is teaching about … Read the rest
Continue reading "Dangerous Eating" »Running with Saint Jonathan
I grew up with the lyric “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” etched in my memory. That reference surely dates me, although I confess that I was a pretty small child when my parents were playing Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” on our home stereo. My parents were themselves … Read the rest
Continue reading "Running with Saint Jonathan" »Commissioned to Cross Boundaries
As a child growing up in a house of many books but little religious instruction, I was fascinated by our remnant collection of Bibles, mostly squirreled away in obscure corners of dusty shelves. We were like the statistically average American household that owns 3.6 Bibles per reader, but nobody ever reads them. I wasn’t sure … Read the rest
Continue reading "Commissioned to Cross Boundaries" »Costly Freedom
I occasionally follow the online musings of a once-celebrated evangelical Christian blogger named Jen Hatmaker. Maybe you’ve heard of her? She came by her fame honestly; she hosted a rather charming blog about the foibles of Christian parenting in the 21st century, and she went on to become an author and sought-after speaker on … Read the rest
Continue reading "Costly Freedom" »Three Choirs, One Song of Praise
Easter 5C
Grace Cathedral Evensong
“Who was I that I could hinder God?” asked Peter of the observant Jewish believers in Jerusalem. It was a fair question, if rhetorical. Who are you that you could hinder God? Really, who are any of us that we can hinder God?
Peter and his listeners already well knew that trying to hinder God … Read the rest
Continue reading "Three Choirs, One Song of Praise" »The Commissioning of the Wounded
Poor Thomas. He’s gotten such a bad name for nothing more than asking for reasonable verification. We might think of him as the Gospel’s first empirical scientist, and yet he’s come to be known as the doubter. That’s because subheadings in the Bible—added rather recently by translators and publishers—are interpretive. For good or ill, they … Read the rest
Continue reading "The Commissioning of the Wounded" »