• Our Pentecost

    Our Pentecost

      While we wait for Superman and our friends build bomb shelters a low thunder rumbles, proving our certainty justified. The forecast calls for rain: 100%. The cloud with the lightening bolt flying out comically warns us: an image so innocent and besides, we’ve been through storms. We know what to expect. We wait. The only…

  • Innocence

    Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3 Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide The fact that Kalief Browder was innocent is a tragedy. The fact that his mother found his lifeless body is a tragedy. The fact that he was abused in prison by guards and prisoners alike is a tragedy. The fact that he…

  • The Church’s leadership problem and how we can fix it

    The Church’s leadership problem and how we can fix it

    I love you, Church, but we’ve got a problem. Sometimes it seems like you are addicted to tyrants and despots. Like those Hebrews asking for a king. Or else you are addicted to ineffectual and passive leadership. The kind easily manipulated by the whims of the powerful or chided in parking lots. You make it…

  • Choosing GOD means looking funny

    Choosing GOD means looking funny

    The sort of liberation Jesus offers comes with a helping of crazy. Proper 5B  |  Mark 3:20-35, 1 Samuel 8:4-20 Mistaking GOD for a demon This morning we truly begin the season after Pentecost. Unlike the other seasons of Advent, Christmas, the season after the Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, this season does not have an…

  • The Next Big Thing for Christianity

    The Next Big Thing for Christianity

    Prophets The prophets of the Old Testament were gifted at knowing what was about to happen. But not so gifted at predicting the future. The difference between the two is simple to parse. Given the environment and knowledge of the world, culture, and the divine dream, they did an astounding job of knowing what would…

  • 4 things all Christians want

    4 things all Christians want

    Though we may seem obsessed with ways in which people of faith are different, there are several things which are common among all Christians. Here are a few things upon which we can all agree we want. 1. Peace I like to joke that the safest thing to want is world peace, since every beauty scholarship contestant knows…

  • At least they are counting

    At least they are counting

    On June 1, The Guardian launched a new site: The Counted. The US government has no comprehensive record of the number of people killed by law enforcement. This lack of basic data has been glaring amid the protests, riots and worldwide debate set in motion by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, in Ferguson,…

  • Shouldn’t sacraments be alike?

    Shouldn’t sacraments be alike?

    A Should’ve Asked Question When we bring new people into the faith, we often ask them to memorize a short phrase from the back of the Book of Common Prayer. A phrase that many of us can rattle off with little trouble. At least the first half of it, anyway. We sit, Prayer Books in hand…