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Jesus and the Dishonest Questioners
When Jesus is confronted in Jerusalem by the Sadducees, they ask a convoluted question about the afterlife. So Jesus changes the conversation.
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Between: From Authentic Disciples to Confronting the Lying Liars
A look at the gaps in the lectionary. This week: the gap between Proper 26C and Proper 27C. The text: Luke 19:11-20:26. For those who may have transferred All Saints to Sunday, the story from Proper 26C is Luke 19:1-10—the one in which Zacchaeus climbs a tree. For the congregation, this is a capstone on…
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Brave in Love
Jesus keeps offering a vision of radical love. But for some reason we keep shaking our heads and going “No, really. What do you want?”
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No Competition
The parable of the righteous man is a set-up. And we can’t help falling for it. Because we don’t know what to do with his being wrong.
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Between: Is the Coming Kingdom Good? Bad? Or entirely different?
In Luke 17:20-37, Jesus gives a terrifying warning about the future. Here’s why we so often miss the point. We all take him literally.
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Working to End the Death Penalty
Jesus was killed by the death penalty. My neighbors, the ones left to do the country’s dirty work, are bearing our burden.
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Saving Faith
Jesus’s message of restoration buts up against his critique of the status quo. Now, he invites us to see that faith can save us; and we can save faith.
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The difference between justification and mercy
We make a habit of justification. We just want to explain. There was a reason we weren’t there. Something. Anything to avoid mercy. A justification is often the grounding upon which we make a case. We hope that everything we do is justified. That’s how we often think about it. But it isn’t how we…
