Thursday, January 3, 2019
In the face of dwindling attendance, many churches respond by enthusiastically pouncing on visitors with radical hospitality—fresh bread, coffee mugs, a schedule of upcoming events, information about the nursery and Sunday School. It’s very nice—for those visiting the...
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
A crowd follows Jesus by boat across the Sea of Galilee after hearing him preach and being miraculously fed. Jesus tries to help them fully digest what they have experienced. He tells them—and us—that he is the bread they should be seeking. For some, the….(View...
Monday, December 31, 2018
Jesus and I both come from places that we understand and identify with down to our bones. I’m a sixth-generation native Texan, and some of my relatives came from Europe to Appalachia to the wide-open spaces of McCulloch County and stayed there. That’s where I’m...
Sunday, December 30, 2018
We can’t ever be Jesus, but we can see what he does and strive to be like him. Living out a faith and loving out a law are the fruits of that labor. Being like Jesus is doing the work he has given us to do and not making that work small or stingy or belittling the...
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Today, the church remembers Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, a martyr for the faith. I also remember the men, women, and children killed in the Wounded Knee massacre, Archbishop Óscar Romero, Sophie Scholl, faithful members at Mother Emanuel in Charleston,...
Friday, December 28, 2018
We sit here, caught somewhere between cooing over the Baby in the manger and keening over the babies sacrificed to satiate Herod’s thirst for power and his fear of losing it. It is hard to sit still in these difficult, confusing, conflicting feelings. The intensity of...
Thursday, December 27, 2018
My favorite stories in the Bible are the ones that take place between rocks and hard places, when the glory of God shows up in ways we cannot mistake for anything other than revelatory. Moses, Elijah, Ezekiel, Peter, John, and Mary (to name just a few) have stories to...
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Stephen lives in a besieged city, occupied by all sorts of powers and principalities. He knows this psalm—it’s probably committed to memory—and he has likely prayed it when he thinks about the prophets who have come before him. The honesty and rawness, bravery and...
