In Luke 13, Jesus tells a parable about a barren fig tree. The tree is planted in a vineyard, which sounds weird, but fig trees were often used as trellises in vineyards. The owner is unhappy because the tree is not bearing fruit. “Cut it down,” he says. But the vintner says, “I’ll dig around…
“Turn these stones to bread.” “Worship me to gain power over the kingdoms of this world.” “Fall from the pinnacle so we can all watch the angels swoop in and rescue you.” These are the temptations the devil throws out to Jesus in the wilderness. They are temptations about power: to control the natural…
I once baffled the others in my youth group by managing to get lost on a nature trail. The thing is, the trail was really hard to see and there were also deer paths and it was the middle of a Kansas prairie. If you’ve ever been in the middle of a prairie you know…
Good Friday, April 3, 2015 Peace Mennonite Church Welcome and Introduction Hymn: Abide with me Call to Worship We are Jesus’ disciples, following him even as he moves toward the cross. Even as he wraps a towel around his waist. Even as he kneels to wash the filth from the feet of his friends. We…
[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,…
I think it is natural to imagine that our holy spaces will be quiet, private. Places where we can be still and alone. Or maybe with a few intimate friends. Yet if we define a holy space as a space inhabited by God, then the Gospels affirm crowded places as distinctly holy. Jesus was often…
While we can inhabit holy spaces, scripture reveals that the holy inhabits us as well. God puts the holy law within us. God writes on our hearts. God cleans us from the inside out. As we consider holy spaces along this Lenten journey, we must recognize that our very bodies are holy spaces because God…
I am notoriously bad with directions. My ability to get lost has amazed and astounded my friends throughout the years. Some of them have found out the hard way that just because I’ve been somewhere before does not mean I know how to get there again. For that matter, just because I’ve gotten somewhere does…
Lent was a fairly new concept for me when I was in college, and one year I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice—chocolate. I still remember standing in the ice cream parlor, looking at the luscious rocky road and chocolate swirl and brownie chunk ice cream–and choosing butter pecan. Butter pecan. Such is the suffering…
In the Celtic spiritual tradition, people refer to “thin places”–spaces where the veil between the Divine and the earthly is especially thin; places where you can easily have a sense of the holy, a feeling of connection to God. There are places commonly recognized as thin, as holy. The places where Jesus is said to…
Spacious Faith 