THE OTHER SIDE
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want […]
SHOW ME YOUR GLORY
I once went to Italy. I was in college. For this polite Episcopalian from South Carolina it was an eye opening experience, in a good way, in many ways it set me free. Italians have a way of doing that. One day when I toured the Vatican I saw the famous sculpture of Moses by […]
CHANGING GOD’S MIND
We become what we worship. It is an old theological adage. We become what we worship. So we should be careful who or what we worship. Worshipping the living God is good for us. Worshipping anything or anyone else is bad for us. It seems strait forward. But why is it never that simple? […]
TEN WORDS
Anxiety dreams. Do you ever have those? One of those dreams when you suddenly realize you are walking down the street naked as the day you were born? Or you are back in school and you can’t find your locker, or you realize that you forgot to show up for a class for the whole […]
MANNA
So here we are. Free at last, out here in the dessert. With NOTHING to eat or drink. Perhaps we needed a better exit strategy. What were we thinking? Lets just go back, to the fleshpots of Egypt, Moses is going to get us killed, we are dying of hunger, at least under slavery we […]
THE ONE WHO HEARS
Sheru la Yahweh, kea ga oh, ga ah, soos, wa roe ka voe, ramah vayam. Perhaps the oldest poem in the Hebrew language, perhaps the oldest writing in the Old Testament, one of the oldest songs in the history of the world. Sheru la Yahweh, kea ga oh, ga ah, soos, wa […]
GET READY TO RUN
I love games that involve running around. Not the highly structured games with lots or rules and referees like soccer, or football, or tennis. No, the games that I like are the more improvised ones like tag. I grew up in a neighborhood with many children and we would play this game we called “kick […]
HIDING OUT
Moses used to like messing with other peoples business. Meddling in other peoples’ lives, intervening. But “like” wasn’t the correct word, “compelled” was more like it. He didn’t go looking for trouble, it just always seemed to find him, and before he could think better of it, he would get involved. Once it meant killing […]
MOSES
The beginning of something. Not just any old thing, not just something interesting, but something that spells the demise and destruction of something that we thought would never end and the beginning of something new and unknown. Moses. The hammer that came down upon the Egyptians, smiting, again and again, until their wills and their […]
DOG
See the dog. See the dog at the table. See the dog run around the table. See the dog on the table. (Bad dog!) See the dog under the table eating the crumbs. Prepositions. Where is the dog in relation to the table? A primer in grammar and a primer in faith. Being […]
THE GOSPEL PROJECT
A tired old world, too busy to think that things could ever be any different, it would be too difficult to change direction. And then something new comes along and the world is shown to be so much more than we thought, not a dead end or a prison, but the beginning of something, the […]
HOSPITALITY
Strangers. Someone who isn’t from around here. Foreigners. They keep showing up. They are all over sacred scripture. They are a preoccupation of biblical morality. Whether it is from the book of Deuterononomy, “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Or the book of […]
GOD’S LANDSCAPE
One time I drove all the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. Another time I drove from here to North Dakota. One time I drove across Nebraska. Leaving home, leaving the familiar, I was able to see and notice what I had taken for granted, the land, the sky, the people, the plants the […]
ANOTHER CHANCE
Have you ever had to start over? Have you ever lost everything? Do you know someone like that? Have you ever failed? Have you ever been given a second chance? Have you ever feared for your life? Have you ever been rescued? Rescued from your self? Do you live in fear of […]
DANGER
My Great Aunt Frances, my paternal grandmother’s older sister, was a seamstress for Stone manufacturing in the fifties and sixties into the seventies. Her husband died young, she raised three children. One year she was in Life magazine, for her sewing. She would give me apple juice to drink. We called her Aunt Fanty. […]
AT TABLE
What brings people together? What drives us apart? When do we lift one another up? When do we beat one another down? Over the past five years I have become very interested in those questions. It has been interesting and disturbing watching the national leadership of our country and the […]
GAZING UP
Down by the runway, giant jet liners roar up and down the black asphalt, the road to the heavens. When they are taking off they go faster and faster, the nose starts to lift up and slowly the wheels lift from the ground, they climb into the sky, pulled upwards by the mystery of […]
Easter Sermon of John Chrysostom
Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Is there anyone who is a grateful servant? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages! If any have toiled from the […]
BREATH OF LIFE
I remember one time a long time ago my Dad told me that he used to like to go to horror movies, until he started having bad dreams so he decided it was time to quit. We spent many Saturday afternoons together watching all those classic B grade horror movies on television on Shock Theater. […]
ABSURD HOSPITALITY
Have you ever known some one who had the gift of hospitality? Not hospitality in the sense of knowing how to entertain, but hospitality in the sense of knowing how to make people feel at home, or knowing who needs somewhere to be at home, hospitality in the sense of making a home for […]
ATONEMENT
Atonement. Atoning for sin. It means at-one-ment. What was separated is reunited, by something. The Cross. A monolith of horror. That is where atonement happens, a slow, agonizing execution. Humanity at our ugliest, our worst, our most perverse. This is where God chooses to be. I suppose the Cross exposes our disconnection from God, […]
Maundy Thursday 2008
A new commandment, the mandate, the Maundy: to love one another in a certain way. And that certain way is the same way that Jesus does it. And the Jesus way of loving is as a servant, washing the feet, serving one another. Love. It isn’t about feelings. It isn’t even about understanding […]
GOD’S WOUNDS
Those who suffer are close to God. Even those who inflict self suffering because they live in a tormented state. There is suffering that comes with life and then there is the suffering that is inflicted by others, the abuse, the restriction of freedom, the binding, the use of the body taken away by […]
Poor in Spirit; Those who Mourn
The crowd gathers around Jesus trying to hear him, they jostle and argue with each other trying to get closer. One person says, “What did he say?” The other person answers, “I think it was blessed are the cheese makers.” Some one else then says, “What’s so special about the cheese makers?” The first one […]