Tuesday, September 3, 2019
On several occasions when I was younger, eager evangelists showed up at my door asking if I had accepted Christ. I discovered that if I answered, “No, but I’d like to,” they would offer some prayer I was to repeat and then be on their way to scout for another...
Monday, September 2, 2019
I’ve never wanted to be a martyr—who would? Yet I remember looking around in chapel one day during seminary and seeing a plaque honoring a former student who was martyred in New Guinea during World War II. How different were we, really? Two students separated only by...
Sunday, September 1, 2019
I once worked at a parish that hosted a weekly meal for our neighbors—many were poor, many were homeless. We served the meal family style, with parish leaders sitting at tables with our neighbors. Other churches and community groups took turns cooking and….(View...
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Liturgical Christians often relegate this story to Palm Sunday and Holy Week where it temporally belongs. How unnerving to have it pop up here like an unwelcome guest at a birthday party. But it never hurts to remind ourselves that Jesus suffers as we do and is...
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Even the great King Solomon had days when he was just managing administrative details. Maybe he kept office hours during which his subjects could bring their arguments and complaints. On this day, two women have brought a tricky problem to the king. It’s a case of she...
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
God’s words come to us in myriad ways. Anyone who has heard God’s still, small voice nudging the soul has heard the word of God. The joyful sensation we feel in communion with other Christians is God working in us. God’s word can also come to us in the counsel of wise...
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Bad things happen to good people. And yet, the Lord is our refuge and our habitation and we are under God’s protection. We must hold these two conflicting facts in tension. Bartholomew is a good companion in this hard task of faith in part because very li….(View...
Thursday, August 22, 2019
All our lessons today burst with intrigue. There is trouble in David’s court, and Absalom has just been killed. Paul’s imprisonment continues, and the plot thickens. In Mark, Jesus is wrapping up a fraught debate session with those wily priests and scribes....
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
One of the beautiful things about the Daily Office Lectionary and its guide to reading through scripture is the opportunity to read the psalms in quantity. Reading them this way is a bit like reading an epic, generational novel. The whole human experience is there:...
