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Blessed (Beatitudes)
Epiphany 4A | Matthew 5:1-12 [Note: the original sermon was preached from sparse notes. What follows is a fleshing out of those notes as best as I can.] GOD of Hope and Wonder, you gave us Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Open our hearts to love as he loves, our imaginations to dream as he…
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Keep Dreaming
It seemed like a bad dream. A little over a month ago, I was checking my e-mail and I came across a strange alert: Glenn Beck was co-opting MLK. Not sure what this meant, I took a look at a response that was written for Sojournors by Ruth Hawley-Lowry that stirred in me a righteous…
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First comes before Second
Earlier, I wrote a piece about the Islamic Center being built two blocks from the former site of The World Trade Center (I erroneously referred to it as a mosque–notice the influence of misinformation in the media!) which you can find here. I recently came across a great, similar response by Anglican Minimalist. A statement…
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Go with the flow
Conversations about energy rarely take into account the precipitating factor of our disagreement: that we long to be masters of creation. Scripture gives us an entirely different charge.
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Mosque Politics, or How to Make Arguments You Cannot Support
So there’s this big hubbub about a faith group wanting to build a structure in Manhattan to practice their faith. This isn’t really news, let’s be honest, regardless of what the faith group is. Now, if it were some fringey group or the First United Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we might find it…
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Compassion
The physical nature of the Compassionate Samaritan story can reveal a deep-rooted internal struggle in all of us.
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Theology as dialogue
I talk back to my TV. I don’t do it regularly. I also don’t expect my TV to respond. I don’t expect the actors in my favorite shows to stop, mid-script, turn their heads toward me, and respond to my comments or anything. But, from time-to-time, I need to respond. Two shows seem to draw…
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a brief note on the oil crisis
I am feeling so much grief about the oil crisis–and I know I’m not the only one. My heart aches for the land… the people… the workers (from the rig and those cleaning up)… the entire ecosystem… the Creator and Life-Giver… and everyone directly and indirectly dependent on the Gulf of Mexico. And the question…