Called for What?
Talking about “call” may not be something most people spend a lot of time angsting over—it seems too churchy. Surely it only applies to those who want to be deacons or priests. But “call” put...
Strangers, Foreigners, Jesus
Recognizing the Christ in others is not simply an exercise in getting misty eyed at those who have unexpectedly helped us, it is recognizing the Christ in those offensive people God has a knack for...
Beloved Community and Body of Christ
What Paul was trying to teach the early churches was that what was true inside their skin was also true outside it. That wholeness was a matter of many different parts all being themselves and...
Life Changing Words
Everything that happens in Jesus’ ministry happens after his baptism and his proclamation that he has been anointed to preach good news, all of it happens because the speaking of God’s word is how the...
A Gritty Repentance
Anyone who gets freaked out and scared off by John is unlikely to be able to handle the One who comes after him. So we are being given fair warning. And, though John and Jesus...
God’s Birth Assistants
As is always the case with God, there is no easy, pretty, or short way to get to the manger. No star bathing us in warmth and light on the journey. In fact, just the...
Beloved Dust
You would think that Christians, we who believe in a God who in Jesus became human, a child of the universe and made from the dust of the earth—a God who became kin not just...
Sitting in Dust
God, from our beginnings in the garden, knew that we would tend to be self-centered, need to put ourselves in God’s place. And God knew that would not go well for us and for God’s...
A Revelation of Hope
God created the rivers, oceans, lakes, and streams—incubators of life from the watery depths of the sea to the watery darkness of the womb. In the beginning it was over the water that God’s Spirit...
She Said No
That the courage of women who speak up, say no, and claim their dignity will never be rewarded. This whole sordid story, this routine dehumanization of women, is as old as time. And as old...