All Posts

Rarely did Jesus say things bluntly or straightforwardly. More often than not, he came at a truth indirectly, sideways-like, in order to come in under our defenses and around our prejudices. His best tools in this were his “parables.” In them, Jesus takes images drawn from familiar things and uses them a new way, to explain God’s Kingdom. It’s to our benefit then that Jesus’ first parable is such an easy one to understand. The story begins with a man who goes forth to s

Joseph Henrich makes the argument in his recent book The Weirdest People in the World, that We in the West are just Weird. Perhaps you’re thinking, what does this have to do with the Gospel lesson this morning? “Whoever loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Jesus wasn’t undermining the local family, so much as calling into question the power structure of society as a whole.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest” (9:38). Just as the disciples kneel down to pray, Jesus turns to them and tells them that God has answered their prayer— Jesus tells them, “You’re hired!” They’ve been drafted to join in Jesus’ work, to do the very things he’s been doing—teaching, healing, preaching, casting out demons.

Today’s lesson from Matthew’s Gospel could righty be titled, “Jesus is on the move.” For over the course of a few verses, we see Jesus going from person to person, encounter to encounter, bringing healing and wholeness and reconciliation everywhere he goes.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day when the Church celebrates and contemplates the triune nature of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It used to be that the question of the Trinity was at the center of vital debate in the Church. Nowadays, churches and theologians happily relegate the Trinity to the margins. And yet, it is important that we continue to observe this holy day.

In this obscure story from the book of Numbers, a tattletale comes running up to Moses, complaining that two were doing something they weren't supposed to: they were prophesying, without permission. Moses’ response: Would that all God’s people were prophets! Moses's wish comes true, in a fashion, in our second lesson from the Acts of the Apostles - the day of Pentecost.

What the Ascension of Christ marks is not really God’s absence but rather God’s ubiquity, his omni-presence, his everywhereness. Because Jesus has ascended, left the physical plane of existence, he is now present everywhere on earth. No longer is Christ’s presence limited to the small space taken up by his human body. He is now able to be present throughout all creation, as he sits above it all, ruling over the whole earth, from his throne beside God the Father.

Coming as we are to the tail end of the Easter season, when it’s harder and harder to maintain excitement at the news of Jesus’ resurrection, John in the passage before us today channels Popeil, insisting, “But wait, there’s more,” more to Easter than the promise of our resurrection.

The only way we can say that, though, to claim Jesus is the way, is to follow his way ourselves. This involves learning the way of Jesus, picking up his rhythms and ways of doing things.

In today’s reading from John, Jesus is speaking to his disciples about fences, specifically the kind that you keep sheep in, a “sheepfold.” He says that those who are thieves and bandits try to “hop the fence,” but the shepherd comes in the right way, through the gate, and the sheep know him, know his voice, and they follow him.

The two disciples in this morning’s Gospel lesson seem to think that by getting out of Dodge maybe they could escape their grief, could leave behind the bad memories of the previous Friday. Jerusalem had become like an empty house from which all the children had gone, haunted by memories, by pain, by hopes that never materialized. Jerusalem was the place where their dreams had died. It was time to hit the road and see if they could leave their troubles behind.

Born ‘Michelangelo Merisi’ in 1571, the Italian artist is best known by the name of the township where he grew up, “Caravaggio.” After a lackluster apprenticeship in Milan, Caravaggio ventured to Rome, and by the age of twenty he was causing scandal, not only because of his volatile character and temper, but also because of his controversial painting methods.

Walking into a Christian church, one of the cues that helps to tell you whether you are in a Roman Catholic church or Protestant church is the presence of either the crucifix (Catholic) or the cross (Protestant). The crucifix, displaying the crucified Jesus, often hangs above the altar, while the bare cross more often than not sits on the altar table or on a shelf behind it.

The remarkable thing about Easter is that Jesus was not just raised from the dead, or that he defeated the powers of sin and death, but that he also returned to his disciples. It would have been enough that Jesus was resurrected, but he also came back to his fearful followers.

Easter may ultimately be about things that are high, bright, light and clear, but it begins low, dim, dark and murky. That’s what we see in our Gospel lesson this morning from John. Here we are told that, for Mary Magdalen, the day that would eventually become celebrated as Easter began “while it was still dark.”

God is not particularly concerned with our happiness, but God is very concerned with our holiness. He is concerned with our commitment and not our pleasure. On the cross, Jesus shows us how far God goes to show us His love and he shows us what it means to be his follower, to love as he loves us.

The writer Annie Dillard, in one of her short stories, has a scene in which a family is sadly gathered at a grave to commit a loved one’s body to the earth. At one point the minister intones the familiar words from I Corinthians, “Where, O Death, is thy sting?” Upon hearing that, one of the family members looks up. He scans the sorrowful faces of his family and sees all around him rows of headstones. And then he thinks to himself, “Why, it’s just about everywhere, seeing a

The healing of the man born blind is significant if only because it had never been done before. No one had ever gained sight when they were born without it. Not in the Old Testament, nor in any stories from ancient times that I can recall. It was a miracle without parallel. It entailed not just fixing a damaged organ but essentially creating new ones, new eyes. But beyond the physical healing, more important is what is signified by the miracle.

As we continue our Lenten journey towards Good Friday, towards the cross, the story of Nicodemus reminds us what this is all about, what the Bible and the church say is the reason God sent Jesus: that no matter how far we feel from God, no matter how long we’ve lived ignoring God’s presence in our lives, no matter what we’ve done or how guilty we feel, or wounded or sullied, Jesus came to save us, to redeem us, to give us new life, eternal life.

What thing in your life is in danger of taking over? What do you love too much in the wrong way? Whatever “it” is, God calls us to end it, to give it up. But that “giving up” need not be some great courageous act of renunciation, rejecting the world and becoming a monk, say. Likely more helpful is to start small, to take baby steps toward new life, beginning by denying ourselves some small things in order to be receptive to greater goods in our lives.