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The Innocent Man
Our church year ends this morning, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, and we end with a doozy: the crucifixion. The most fitting gospel choice for today, dubbed in 1925 as Christ the King Sunday. The day we are to celebrate the primacy of Christ over human authority. And today, we’re reminded what that primacy actually…
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The Dream of GOD, a Nightmare of Privilege
[bctt tweet=”A poem for King, justice, and repentance. #ReclaimMLK” nofollow=”yes”] When we speak of a dream, we speak not of the hazy sleep indulgence, the phantasm of our psyche, but the very call of GOD to make this world radically different from the way it is. The dream, a tricky encounter of revelation. Assaults our…
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Getting behind Jesus
This is the first movement in the turning point, the turning away from the early life of Jesus and toward his destiny. The turning away from safety and toward the danger of the cross. The turning away from home and toward Jerusalem. Jesus turns toward Jerusalem before his followers are ready Proper 19B | Mark…
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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…
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Jesus is risen! Now what?
As the candles are snuffed from our Easter liturgy and the only reminders of our celebration are the mountain of candy wrappers and plastic strips approximating grass, we go back to our lives as a return to normal, as if nothing is different. And the irony is lost on us all. We go about our…
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The Following Day: Monday of Holy Week
“On the following day” Read the text: Mark 11:12-19 There are so few opportunities to see the anger of Jesus. We get so lulled by the images of the sweet Jesus, the stained-glass stick figure or the imagined bearded Caucasian with the sheep on his back and the children at his feet, that the Jesus with…
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Why Religious Freedom Acts are Code for Open Discrimination
In the last few years, we’ve seen a flurry of new bills coming out of state houses addressing religious liberty. They reveal an earnest desire to protect religious freedom. In practice, however, they serve to disenfranchise and actually restrict the religious liberty of vast numbers of people. These bills, popping up in at least 20 states, including…
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The New Authority
Jesus shows us why our ideas of power are only half right a Homily for Epiphany 4B | Text: Mark 1:21-28 Authority Today’s story about Jesus leaving the seashore and heading to the synagogue to teach is obviously about authority. It says so. Twice. But it gets a little complicated. Yes, it is about authority…