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Dude, Stop Being Satan! (Eating Scripture)
In this week’s piece, we explore the nature of Mark 8:27-38, the story with that great line: “get behind me, Satan!” Ouch! Peter got burned! The big thing about this story is that it is that turning point. The point where everything really does change because its game day. Yesterday was practice, today we play. If we dwell…
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Of the soil
a Homily for Proper 18B Text: Mark 7:24-37 Is Jesus a Racist? The central figures of this pericope are Jesus and the Psyrophenician Woman. This woman comes to Jesus to heal her daughter who is possessed by a demon. The last time Jesus was over here, he dispelled a host of demons. Our lectionary skipped…
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Check out the new #progGOD site
Thanks to Patheos, a major religion website, all of the submissions to Tony Jones’ #progGOD challenge have been placed in one spot. And I’m in there! Check it out here. You can find my submission about two-thirds of the way down on the right. Here is Tony’s announcement of the new webpage. What is #progGOD? A short while…
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Tilling the Soil
Those that have joined us for Bible Study can tell you one really important concept that comes out of our earliest creation story. It begins in Genesis 2 (chapter 1 was written later). GOD creates the earth and all of the creatures of the earth. Then from the soil (adama), the first human (adam) was…
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Let the good stuff out
a Homily for Proper 17B Text: Mark 7:1-23 Those Dirty Hands You may have noticed that I read the whole gospel pericope, not the shortened version in the lectionary. The primary reason is because the full story makes more sense than the edited version. The second reason is because what was removed is the part…
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The Dream 2012
On the 49th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, it seems fitting to reflect on where we are in fulfilling it. Back in January, I wrote this for King’s birthday: It should surprise none of us that a leader villified by the conservative white community as “uppity” would become as…
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Faith Before Understanding
a Homily for Proper 16B Text: John 6:56-69 What is this? Jesus has brought the people here through a swirling storm of teachings about faith, understanding, and love. As they arrive to the safety of the synagogue, he takes all of that teaching and he mixes in their likely confusion about literal and metaphorical…
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Abel Was a Creative
[NOTE: All scripture quotes are from The Schocken Bible by Everett Fox which transliterates the text to better represent the sound of the Hebrew. Below, Cain and Abel are Kayin and Hevel] While preparing a bible study on Genesis, I was given new insight about the traditional Cain and Abel story. It prophetically speaks to…