God
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Let the good stuff out
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6 min read
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
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3 min read
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
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5 min read
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
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4 min read
[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…
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God Is a Lousy Name
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4 min read
In seminary, my Hebrew professor explained the choice we have in dealing with describing GOD. To begin with, we traditionally don’t use GOD’s name in scripture. We use a marker. Wherever the name is used, it is replaced with GOD or LORD in caps. The name was first written in ancient Hebrew, which does not…
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The Great Storyteller
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5 min read
A few years ago, in the summer, I would scoop up my precocious three year-old and we would brave the Georgian heat to go for a walk. “Long walk or short walk,” I would ask. “Long walk,” she replied. As if there were any other kind to her. We would take off down the road.…