Mark 12:38-44 Let me summarize the common message drawn from the story of the widow’s mite: “Friends, this poor widow gave everything she had to the temple treasury, so pull out your checkbooks and give a lot of money to this church.” But let’s not go there. Let’s back up and consider the context. First…
The Lectionary readings for All Saints Day and All Souls day include lovely words and images of God’s care for us and the Divine promise of eternal life: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” “God will swallow up death forever.” “Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be…
Even now, two thousand years later, you can almost hear the man’s sigh of relief when Jesus reminds him of the basic commandments. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got all of that covered,” says the man. (“I’ve got eternal life in the bag,” he thinks.) And you can almost see the look of concern slowly settle on…
The following is an excerpt from a sermon I preached on Matthew 17:24-27. This was the last sermon in our summer series: Who is Jesus?. I’ve always loved this quirky story, but I only recently realized how many assumptions I have made about it. Like the assumption that Jesus actually did pay the temple tax.…
[This is an excerpt from my sermon for March 22, 2015. You can read the full sermon text here.] I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. “I have calmed and quieted my soul.” This calm, this stillness,…
*This reflection is excerpted from a sermon on Mark 1:14-20. You can also listen to the audio.] This is one of those overly-familiar texts. One of those Bible stories we’ve heard over and over again since we were kids. I looked up the scripture, saw the heading–”Jesus calls the disciples”–and I knew what the text…
[This post is excerpted from this full sermon.] The very first sentence of this story tells us that “the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli.” And this sentence tells us right away how things are supposed to work. Samuel is a boy and Eli is a grown-up. Samuel is serving under Eli.…
[This post is excerpted and edited from a sermon I preached a few years ago.] Jonah is a book of biting satire. You have a prophet who does exactly the opposite of what prophets are supposed to do. He runs away from Yahweh and keeps his mouth closed. The fish’s mouth, of course, is wide…
[This reflection is an edited excerpt from this sermon on Matthew 4:18-22.] Think, for a minute, about a time in the past few days that you were at work–your job work or working on some project or responsibility. You are grading papers or standing in front of a class full of kids. You are making…
[This reflection is excerpted from a sermon I preached on Hebrews 12:18-29. You can find the full text here and the audio here.] Generally, I find the section headings in Bibles less than helpful. But the section heading for this week’s scripture stopped me in my tracks: “The Mountain of Fear and the…
Spacious Faith 