Category Archive

Several years ago, my mother handed me my baby book. In addition to highlights surrounding my day of birth, my mother included the weather that day. Also included in the baby book is the date of my baptism, November 22, 1949, the names of my godparents, and others who sent cards and gifts. Which brings me to my reflection on the Feast of Epiphany. Origin stories are interesting to us. We desire to know more about ourselves and those significant to us. Jewish followers of Jesus in the first century embraced Matthew’s account of the Good News. They were believers …

I begin with a story. It’s a true story, told to me by a trustworthy woman who many years ago, when she was still a child, was briefly traumatized by the 24th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, part of which I have just read to you. Both her family and her church understood the heart of this chapter to describe what has come to be known as the Rapture Theory: Then two will be in the field; One will be taken and one will be left. Two will be grinding meal together; One will be taken and one will be left. …

O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today.  (Phillips Brooks, 1868) I have to admit it. I’ve always been sort of a curmudgeon when it comes to Christmas.  You can ask my children and the various congregations I served over the years. My curmudgeonly-ness is not directed at the holy day per se, but what has been done to it culturally. There’s always too much glitter and tinsel and hype for my taste, starting way too soon. Those year-round Christmas stores literally elevate my blood pressure should …

The apocalyptic literature in the scripture readings of recent Sundays caused me to recall a children’s song I heard on many long car trips, “Are we there yet?”  “Are we there yet?” “How much farther do we have to go?” Well, we are at our destination, the last Sunday of the liturgical year.    We call it the Sunday of the Fulfillment.      Thanks to AI, I learned the meaning of “fulfillment”.           In business, fulfillment is the complete process of receiving, processing, and delivering a customer’s order to their specified location. It encompasses all steps from when a customer places …

When the wall between the worlds is too firm, too close. When it seems all solidity and sharp edges. When every morning you wake as if flattened against it, its forbidding presence fairly pressing the breath from you all over again. Then may you be given a glimpse of how weak the wall and how strong what stirs on the other side, breathing with you and blessing you still, forever bound to you but freeing you into this living, nto this world so much wider than you ever knew. Jan Richardson: God of the Living-A Blessing from The Cure for …

You aren’t alone if these readings strike you as fairly threatening.  Malachi’s “burn up the arrogant and evildoers” is further than I’d go when pushed, though at times I may hope for some “creative divine intervention.. Of this constellation of Scriptures, Walter Brueggemann once wrote: Either the world is about to crack, according to these texts, or God’s rule reigns!       The warnings Malachi put out seem to have been aimed at an indulgent, greedy Jewish priesthood – and all who would cheat the poor, even sell them as slaves.  Men who cast off their wives to marry foreigners also earned …

Dizang asked Fayan, “Where are you going?” Fayan said, “Around on pilgrimage.” Dizang said, “What is the purpose of pilgrimage?” Fayan said, “I don’t know.” Dizang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.” This Zen Buddhist teaching story has been rattling around in my mind for the last couple of years, particularly the punch line:  Not knowing is most intimate.  I think it goes to the heart of our ongoing efforts to live a shared life of humility, hospitality, compassion, and care–care for ourselves, for one another, for our society, for the earth.  All of these aspects of our life are …

This morning’s gospel reading from Luke is tremendously difficult and would be so much better dealt with in a classroom or a formal bible study. And even in those spaces we’d be in for a hard slog. Many biblical commentators consider it one of the most difficult parables. My clergy friends say, “this gospel doesn’t preach.” So today we, like Jacob, are going to really wrestle with the Holy One. We will probably all walk out limping. But if we let the parable do its work, we might leave with a blessing, too. Parables were Jesus’ way of “teaching” – …

Last month marked fifty years since my ordination.  I’ve been doing this for a long time! As I prepared this homily it occurred to me that I have been preaching for even longer. I think my first attempt was on a so-called “Youth Sunday” in my hometown Iowa church as a high school kid. And, Lord, have mercy, I had a student parish assignment during my seminary years in Dubuque. Those gentle souls in McGregor, Iowa must have been very patient and tolerant with their wet-behind-the-ears, twenty something preacher. Over the years of my ministry, first in United Methodist churches in …