By Brian Volck

• As We Watch by Brian Volck (2/23/2017)
  Transfiguration Sunday Exodus 24:12-18 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 "...for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men's faces." - Gerard Manley Hopkins The Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated August 6, yet the gospel passage itself is closely associated with the beginning of Lent. The Revised Common Lectionary proclaims it on the Sunday before Lent while the Catholic Lectionary does so on the Second Sunday of Lent. Both lectionaries give the First Sunday of Lent over to the temptation of Jesus in the de...
• Disowning the Right Things by Brian Volck (11/30/2016)
  Second Week in Advent Isaiah 11:1-10 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12 In the days since the US presidential election (which now seems but one phase in an accelerating process of rancorous division), I’ve returned often to a familiar prayer from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude:

  My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you doe...

• Lost Sheep and Broken People by Brian Volck (9/6/2016)
  Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Exodus 7:11-14 OR Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15: 1-10 I once imagined the easiest commandment to keep was the one against idolatry. It seemed rather simple: don’t go sacrificing animals to statues of false gods and I’d be fine. I was much younger then. I hadn’t yet lived into life’s ambiguities, hadn’t yet recognized the power of my own desires, hadn’t yet read enough theology – Augustine in particular. When I understood idolatry as getting the order of my loves ...
• Snaring Satan by Brian Volck (6/29/2016)
  Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Kings 5:1-14 OR Isaiah 66:10-14 Galatians 6:7-16 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 "The cross of the Lord was the devil's mousetrap. The bait by which he was caught was the Lord's death" - St. Augustine, Sermon 263 The modern mind doesn’t know what to do with the idea of “Satan,” and, try as I might to make it otherwise, I have a modern mind. Like many others, I don't know if the Hebrew, S-t-n, “the adversary or accuser,” or the Greek, diabolos, “the slanderer,” can st...
• Learning to be Sheep by Brian Volck (4/13/2016)
  Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 9:36-43 OR Acts 13:14, 43-52 Psalm 23 Revelation 7:9-17 John 10:22-30 Sheep again, that well-worn metaphor. The Bible tells of countless flocks and many working shepherds: Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Amos, and the shepherds of Bethlehem. The image of a shepherd tending a flock (the latter a frequent stand-in for the people of Israel) recurs often. In the Old Testament, shepherd imagery may point to God, the promised Messiah, or human leaders appointed by God: p...
• Not Yet at the Wedding Banquet by Brian Volck (1/12/2016)
  Second Sunday after Epiphany Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 62:1-5 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 John 2:1-11 This is one of those blessed Sundays in which the Catholic and Revised Common lectionaries are almost exactly concordant, the only differences being the inclusion or absence of a few verses in the first two readings. How interesting, then, that today’s gospel reading is often mined to text-proof theological positions in direct contradiction to one another. That details of the wedding at Cana passage – an episode that appears only in John’s gospel and designated by the author as the first of Jesus’s...
• Where Mercy and Justice Meet by Brian Volck (9/30/2015)
  Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Genesis 2:18-24 OR Job 1:1, 2:1-10 Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 Mark 10:2-16 The readings this Sunday are thickly planted with pastoral land mines. Even the revised common lectionary, which typically supplies a kinder, gentler Old Testament alternative to the Catholic selection, offers a passage from Job with a theologically problematic encounter between God and Satan and an unkind reference to women. You decide if that’s safer to preach on than God’s fashioning the woman from the man’s rib. Ha...
• The World We've Made by Brian Volck (7/1/2015)
  Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Ezekiel 2:1-5 Psalm 123 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Mark 6:1-13 “Hontar: We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus. Altamirano: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world... thus have I made it.” -Robert Bolt, The Mission “The past is never dead. It's not even past." -William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun Whatever your opinion of Barack Obama, you can’t deny the last full week of June was kind to him, climaxing on Friday as he c...
• No Weapon But Grace by Brian Volck (4/20/2015)
  Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 4:5-12 1 John 3:16-24 John 10:11-18 One morning, when my daughter was about four years old and deep in another “Daddy is Doo-Doo” phase during which my wife’s presence was infinitely preferable to mine, she called for her mother from the comfort of her own bed. My wife was in the shower and unable to answer, and the tone of my daughter’s voice quickly escalated from polite request to imperious demand. Even today, when I think of my now nineteen year-old daughter, I hear Helena, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, saying, “though she be but little, she is fierce.” I stepped to...
• Becoming Human by Brian Volck (3/25/2015)
  Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Mark 11:1-10 Isaiah 50:4-7 Philippians 2:6-11 Mark 14:1-15:47 “So far as being human goes, the only difference between Jesus and me is that he lived out his humanity more consistently than I do.” – Herbert McCabe Those who dismiss Christianity as a comforting myth are inattentive readers of Scripture. They can’t, for instance, have read Mark’s gospel in anything but a superficial or tendentious way. Mark’s Jesus dies horribly, nailed to an imperial torture device, abandoned by his male disciples (though not by some o...
• Assumed and Healed by Brian Volck (1/7/2015)
  Baptism of the Lord Genesis 1:1-5 OR Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 Acts 19:1-7 OR Acts 10:34-38 Mark 1:4-11 Mark’s characteristically spare account of Jesus’ baptism tells us little about the encounter between Jesus and John. We don’t learn if Jesus joined the riverside queue waiting to be dunked or suddenly presents himself to a wading John, but we get some sense that Jesus’ arrival is both anticipated and in need of explanation. Why does he undergo baptism of repentance? Have we’ve heard the story too often to g...
• Learning to Live Like Sheep by Brian Volck (11/18/2014)
  The Reign of Christ The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe Ezekiel 34:11-17, 20-24 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 OR Ephesians 1:15-23 Matthew 25:31-46 Not everyone loves the desert. I do. Circumstances led me to another home, but the desert remains the landscape of my heart. Like a former lover turned dear friend and counselor, it refreshes my spirit whenever I return. It was in the high desert of the Navajo Nation that I awakened to the practical significance of images so resonant for the desert-dwellers who wrote the Bible. To see a ...
• The Unfairness of God’s Justice by Brian Volck (9/27/2014)
  Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21:23-32 The twentieth century political philosopher, John Rawls, summarily restated his most famous work, A Theory of Justice, as “Justice as Fairness.” Many who know little of his learned, complex argument may have heard of his “Original Position,” the thought experiment that serves as creation myth for Rawls’ social contract. Rawls asks his reader to imagine a meeting where all parties choose a common social structure from behind a “veil of ignorance.” No one knows his/her/it...
• Questions for a Picnic by Brian Volck (7/30/2014)
  Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 55:1-5 Romans 8:35-39 OR 9:1-5 Matthew 14:13-21 What does is mean to be fed, to not know when or how our bodily needs will be met, yet to wait in confidence that food will come? How do we grow so confident of being fed – and fed well – that we follow Christ into the desert? What do we learn from having our dependence on the grace and love of another made so obvious, so public? Why was the story of the feeding of the five thousand (“not counting women and children”) so important to t...
• Wasteful Miracles by Brian Volck (7/10/2014)
  Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
 Isaiah 55:10-13 Psalm 65 Romans 8:1-11 OR Romans 8:18-23 Matthew 13:1-23 With two millennia of practice, Christians have nearly perfected the art of explaining away Gospel demands. Excuse-making is, after all, a human strong suit, and it’s not easy to stop doing what you’re really good at. A modern variant of the “that’s nice, but it doesn’t apply to me” excuse stresses how different our lives are from those of first cen...
• (Mis)Remembered Words by Brian Volck (7/4/2014)

  This week’s post is a reflection originally published in 2011. -

  Zechariah 9:9-10; Matthew 11:25-30 In an October 13, 1813 letter to his former political rival, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson described his work on a short book, The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. This was Jefferson’s own distillation of gospel texts, in which he meant to include, “the very words only of Jesus,” while eliminating all elements Jefferson deemed irrational.  Jefferson assumed the parts he found superstitious were simply the result of ignorant men who misremembered or misunderstood Jesus’ “pure principles.” When he was done with his editing, Jefferson wrote, “There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have...
• A Quieter Pentecost by Brian Volck (6/6/2014)
  Acts 2:1-21; 1 Corinthians 12: 3-13; John 20:19-23   This week's post is a reflection originally published in 2011. The Catholic Church’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is, ideally, a process lasting many months, during which unbaptized catechumens and baptized but unconfirmed candidates learn from and discern with sponsors and other members of the church community they hope to become part of. My home parish takes this seriously. While the rite is meant to lead to reception into the chur...
• A Same Kind of Different by Brian Volck (5/1/2014)
  Third Sunday of Easter
 Acts 2:14-41 1 Peter 1:17-23 Luke 24:13-35 If our hope is even remotely true, what will the resurrected body be like? Assuming the gospel accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances offer clues, what little we learn there might best be summed up as “different, but the same.” Mary found Jesus so changed, at least from a distance, that she mistook him for a gardener. Thomas learns that even if doors can’t stop Jesus, the scars of his execution abide. Cleopas and his companion are clueless until they recognize Jesus “in the breaking of the bread.” For all of tho...
• Bonds Unbroken by Brian Volck (2/19/2014)
  Seventh Sunday after Epiphany Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 Matthew 5:38-48 At the start of an interview with America magazine last year, Pope Francis was asked, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” The Pope paused a moment before saying, “I am a sinner,” and then went on to clarify: “…but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” Perhaps you, like me, take heart at these words, which sound like the fruit of hard experien...
• A Very Messy Christmas by Brian Volck (12/18/2013)
  Fourth Sunday in Advent Isaiah 7:10-16 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-24 Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen Judah is threatened, but King Ahaz, not otherwise known for piety, refuses to test God in his moment of need. God nevertheless renders a sign: Isaiah, who thinks he knows what information a calculating ruler wants to hear, announces that a girl with soon give birth. Paul writes as a self-described slave to Christians in the imperial capital where he will ev...
• Deep and Wide by Brian Volck (8/20/2013)
  Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Jeremiah 1:4-10 OR Isaiah 58:9-14 OR Isaiah 66:18-21 Hebrews 12:18-29 OR Hebrews 12:5-13 Luke 13:10-17 OR Luke 13:22-30 It’s a difficult week for ecumenical commentary on the lectionaries, a rare Ordinary Time Sunday when none of the Revised Common Lectionary and Catholic Lectionary passages match. Books and even chapters nearly align, ...
• A Different Sort of History by Brian Volck (7/2/2013)
  Seventh Sunday After Pentecost Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Kings 5:1-14 OR Isaiah 66:10-14 Galatians 6:7-18 Luke 10:1-12, 16-20 “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in
 reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel!” -Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 “Well, boy, if he’s an angel, he’s sure a murderin’ angel.” -The Killer Angels It’s a week of significant anniversaries in North America. July 1 is the 146th year since the pass...
• Rejoice! Our Work Has Just Begun! by Brian Volck (3/27/2013)
  Easter Sunday Acts 10:34-43 Ps 118 Col 3:1-4 OR 1 Cor 5:6-8 OR 1 Cor 15:19-26 Jn 20:1-9 OR Lk 24:1-12 We didn’t expect this. No matter how many times we’re told the story, we never do. Like Hazel Motes in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, most of us shout to the world through our attitudes and actions – if not necessarily with words – that, “I'm a member and preacher to that church w...
• A Nose Hair in the Body of Christ by Brian Volck (1/21/2013)
  Third Sunday after Epiphany Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 
 Nehemiah 8:2-4A,5-6,8-10 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 Luke 4:14-21 Last year,while visiting our dear friends,Sandie and Owen,and enjoying an evening of good food and even better conversation, Jill, my wife, said, only half in jest, “When I look at what other people accomplish, I can’t help thinking about all those other things I should be doing: working to stop the death penalty, saving starving children, reading the best books, having informed opinions.” Sandie paused a moment to ponder Jill’s concerns, and said, “All those things a...
• Living into the Mystery by Brian Volck (11/14/2012)
  Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
 Daniel 12:1-3 OR 1 Samuel 2:1-10 Hebrews 10:11-25 Mark 13:1-8 OR Mark 13:24-32 It’s November, the closing weeks of the liturgical year, when those in the northern hemisphere see what had recently appeared so green and full of life now wither and die. We see signs in the trees and know that winter is near. For those in the United States, it is also post-election season. Despite the predictable posturing of winners...
• Hearing and Obeying by Brian Volck (9/5/2012)
  Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 35:4-7A James 2:1-17 Mark 7:24-37 My mother – who, while alive, would have been mortified to be called a saint – often told us how God spoke to her in her prayers. She said so without irony or apparent metaphor, nor did she claim special standing, privilege, or insight. In fact, she gave no reason to believe her experience wasn’t available to every praying person. Furthermore, she never claimed to speak for God to others and, as far as I could tell, God’s speaking to her was more important than the words themselves, if...
• The Encounter More Than the Cure by Brian Volck (6/26/2012)
  Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 OR 2 Samuel 1:1,17-27 Psalm 30 OR Psalm 130 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15 Mark 5:21-43 Last year, the British Humanist Association (which lately has become, among other things, a cheer squad for Richard Dawkins) began an ad campaign on city buses in UK with signs declaring, “There probably is no God, so relax and enjoy your life.” This led, as the BHA no doubt intend...
• Show Us the Way by Brian Volck (5/10/2012)
  Acts 10:44-48 1 John 4:7-10 OR 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17 (The following lectionary reflection was published in bLOGOS three years ago, commenting on the same gospel text. Except for a few minor alterations, it appears as it did then. The photo is of Rutilo Grande.) On March 12, 1977, Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ, and two companions were assassinated as they drove toward evening mass through the fields near El Paisnal, El Salvador. Fr. Grande knew where he was going. During his five years as parish prie...
• Naked Intent by Brian Volck (3/14/2012)
  Fourth Sunday of Lent 2 Chronicles 36:14-23 OR Numbers 21:4-9 Ephesians 2:4-10 John 3:14-21 OR John 6:4-15 I am Nicodemus: scared, grasping in the dark for certainties. For all my learning and skills with words, a disgraced Samaritan woman gets Jesus faster and wastes no time in spreading the news. (see John 4) Is it because I, scared of what people will think, prefer coming at night, tripping over words and their meanings? Maybe you know how that feels. Maybe you’re Nicodemus, too....
• Dead in the Water by Brian Volck (2/23/2012)
  First Sunday of Lent Genesis 9:8-17 1 Peter 3:18-22 Mark 1:9-15 Lent is wasted on the orderly, the continent, the well-behaved. Forego some trivial luxury if it makes you feel better, but do it on your own time, please. Lent is for those whose lives are a mess: an invitation, once again, to acknowledge the fragile illusions in which we place so much trust, to name the destructive power of our deep habits. The traditional practices of Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – were never meant to make good people better, much less make them more appealing to God. Lenten practices are ...
• To ponder in our hearts by Brian Volck (12/28/2011)
  Numbers 6: 22-27 Galatians 4:4-7 or Philippians 2:5-11 Luke 2:15-21 “Caro cardo salutis” (The body is the hinge of salvation) – Tertullian The tragically divided trinitarian churches find it difficult to definitively name this Sunday. The Orthodox, as well as some Anglican and Lutheran churches, celebrate the Feast of the Circumcision. So did Catholics until the 1960s, when the day transformed into the Octave of the Nativity and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Those using the Revised Common Lectionary celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus or the...
• So Much Unfairness of Things by Brian Volck (9/20/2011)
  15th Sunday after Pentecost 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21: 23-32 “You can’t conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the ... appalling ... strangeness of the mercy of God.” -Graham Greene, Brighton Rock Mrs. Turpin, the main character in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation,” (published 1965) is grateful. She’s aware, after all, that God could have created things differently. She might not have been white or middle class, which, she thanks God, she is. She’s even grateful that her daily, sometimes distasteful, encounters with poor blacks and “white tras...
• (Mis)Remembered Words by Brian Volck (6/27/2011)
  Zechariah 9:9-10; Matthew 11:25-30 In an October 13, 1813 letter to his former political rival, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson described his work on a short book, The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. This was Jefferson’s own distillation of gospel texts, in which he meant to include, “the very words only of Jesus,” while eliminating all elements Jefferson deemed irrational.  Jefferson assumed the parts he found superstitious were simply the result of ignorant men who misremembered or misunderstood Jesus’ “pure principles.” When he was done with his editing, Jefferson wrote, “There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of ...
• A Quieter Pentecost by Brian Volck (6/6/2011)
  Acts 2:1-11(or 2-21); 1 Corinthians 12: 3-13; John 20:19-23 The Catholic Church’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is, ideally, a process lasting many months, during which unbaptized catechumens and baptized but unconfirmed candidates learn from and discern with sponsors and other members of the church community they hope to become part of. My home parish takes this seriously. While the rite is meant to lead to reception into the church at the Easter Vigil, there’s no rushing, no shortcuts, no simply going with the flow. The rigor and probing reflection often make me wish I hadn’t completed my own initiation so young. From Easter to Ascension, newly-received members (called neophytes, which means “new living things”) wear their white robes each Sunday at litur...
• The Way Down by Brian Volck (4/12/2011)
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  by Brian Volck Matthew 2:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-7(8,9); Phillipians 2: (5)6-11; Matthew 16:14-27:66 “I will bury Jesus (in) myself.” -From The Saint Matthew Passion, BWV 244; Part 2, No.65 I’m not qualified to judge the theological soundness of that old saw, “God draws straight with crooked lines.” We know that Palm Sunday’s readings are a push into the arcing cu...
• Realist of Grace by Brian Volck (2/16/2011)
  [image] Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48 “Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus commands. That’s nowhere near as rosy and naïve as the bumper sticker I once came across, in a boutique full of inspirational art ...
• Herod Rules by Brian Volck (12/23/2010)
  Matthew 2:13-23 If, as the late Raymond Brown was fond of saying, the infancy accounts in Matthew and Luke are “the gospel in miniature,” then this Sunday’s gospel may be read as Matthew’s preview of the passion and resurrection. As with the passion accounts, we go astray if we read ourselves into this story in ways that are too easy, too comforting. If we don’t find something of ourselves in the person of Herod the Great, we’re cutting ourselves far too much slack. Historical accounts of Herod the Great suggest a ruler wily enough to switch allegiances just in time and pragmatic enough to execute his own children when politics demanded. An Idumaean rather than ethnically Jewish, he was nonetheless named “King of the Jews” by the Roman Senate while in exile. After reclaim...
• The Crucified King by Brian Volck (11/18/2010)
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  Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:33-43 At George Washington’s first inaugural in New York City (following an election in which he received every electoral vote), some in the audience wondered if the former colonies had simply exchanged George III for George the Fi...
• Unchained Word by Brian Volck (10/7/2010)
  2 Kings 5; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

  Mark’s Jesus is in a hurry, John’s Jesus is in control, and Matthew’s Jesus does parables. Luke’s Jesus forever crosses borders. This time, the border lies between the boondocks of Galilee and the enemy’s homeland, Samaria. Nathanael – or any right-thinking first century Palestinian Jew – needn’t ask if anything good comes from Samaria. One might as well spout nonsense about a “good Samaritan,” or a “good Al Qaeda.” This week, the border also divides clean from unclean. Unlike the encounter in Luke 5, this text doesn’t m...
• And the Wind Began to Howl by Brian Volck (8/12/2010)
  Revised Common Lectionary Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

  “So let us not talk falsely now; the hour is getting late.” -- From “All Along the Watchtower,” by Bob Dylan Christendom’s demise is a gift to the church. No longer responsible for underwriting the ruling entities of the world, nor longer required to “make nice” with the principalities, no longer dutifully excusing the violence of power politics, the church can at long last resume the serious business of being the church. Playing church is, of course, far easier than being it. Bu...
• All Things Shining by Brian Volck (6/2/2010)
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  Revised Common Lectionary, Second Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 17: 8-16, 17-24; Luke 7:11-17 / Catholic Lectionary, Feast of Corpus Christi: Genesis 14:18-20, Soldiers of Conscience by Brian Volck (5/25/2010)

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  Whatever your stance on war, here are some contemporary voices to consider, voices much closer to the reality of killing than most of us. For those who wish to learn more about the documentary, visit the Apocalypse of Love by Brian Volck (4/29/2010)

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  Revelation 21:1-6; John 13: 31-35

  “Behold,” says the One who sits on the throne, “I make all things new.” God dwells with humanity. Tears, pain and mourning are no more. It sounds wonderful. Sign me up. “I give you a new commandment,” says Jesus to the Eleven...
• Unrealistic Stories and Beginning…Again by Brian Volck (2/10/2010)
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  Transfiguration Sunday (Revised Common Lectionary): Luke 9:28-36, (37-43); Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Catholic Lectionary): Luke 6:17, 20-26 On this Sunday before Lent, when Christian traditions have every reason to be on the...
• Who Bears the Weight of Empire? by Brian Volck (12/4/2009)
    Luke 3:1-6 In today’s gospel, Luke moves rapidly from Emperor Tiberius, in Rome, through a cascade of governors, tetrarchs and high priests, to an eccentric Galilean hayseed (the sort of misfit you’d expect in a Flannery O’Connor short story, with his weird clothes, overwrought speech and hyper-religious obsessions) on a riverside in the nether regions of an inconsequential Roman province. In terms of historical, social and political importance, the downhill slope here is dizzyingly steep. Still, Luke’s concern – for now – is Elizabeth and Zecahriah’s John-boy, not the movers and shakers of first century Judea. Augustus may have proclaimed a census in the chapter immediately preceding this, but it’s John, not Tiberius, maki...
• The Unknowable Shape of Things to Come by Brian Volck (10/15/2009)
  [image] Is 53:4-12; Heb 4:14-16 (Catholic), 5:1-10 (Revised Common); Mark 10:35-45 Do we ever truly know what we’re getting into? If young couples truly knew what pledges of lifelong fidelity require, would anyone marry? If humans truly knew what children demand of parents, would the species continue? If any of us truly knew how often grief is the final evidence of earthly love...
• Visceral Responses by Brian Volck (10/1/2009)
  [image] Genesis 2: 18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11 (Catholic); Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 (Revised Common); Mark 10:2-16 Texts like these that make me gr...
• Loving Enemies: A Training Program by Brian Volck (9/24/2009)
  [image] Numbers 11: (4-6, 10-16) 24-29; Psalm 19; James 5:1-6 (Catholic);
• An Offer You Can’t Refuse by Brian Volck (8/6/2009)
  [image]1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:41-51 Declining an offer of hospitality is, in traditional cultures at least, an insult. Elijah, on the lam from Ah...
• Crash Course by Brian Volck (7/16/2009)
  [image]Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, (53-56) Richard Dawkins, the famed British scientist and atheist, believes in Progress (with a capital “P”). He concedes the Shoah was a “temporary setback” for humanity, but nothing to fret about in the long run. In his view of history, religious faith is in full rout (though st...
• Interdependence Day by Brian Volck (7/2/2009)
  [image] Our good friends at Englewood Review of Books offer a timely reflection on ways to celebrate the interdependence characterizing the Body into which we are called. Shaine Claiborne found the idea compelling en...
• Neither the Best Nor the Brightest by Brian Volck (7/1/2009)
  [image]Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13 I’ve been married long enough now to understand how, in great ways and small, Hauerwas’ Law and its necessary Corollary apply to most committed relationships. The Law, in its most elegant formation, is: You always marry the wrong person. The Corollary: The wrong person is the ...
• Not By Sight by Brian Volck (6/19/2009)
  [image]Mark 4:35-41 What to make of this short, dramatic tale of wonder and power? Jesus tells his followers to “cross to the other side,” a phrase which, in English, is full of associations Mark’s rough Greek may not sustain. Is this merely a simple boat crossing or a prelude to the passion, a window on death’s terror? A storm comes over the water – suddenly, as desert wea...
• A Nation of Prisons & Forgotten Corporal Acts of Mercy by Brian Volck (6/13/2009)
  [image] Martin Marty, of the eponymous Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, is not often quoted at EP gatherings, but he has something to say about the work of EP endorser Tobias Winright, whose review of two books on the American way of imprisonment Shall We Gather? by Brian Volck (5/23/2009)

  [image]While we hope you’ve already made plans to attend the Ekklesia Project Summer Gathering, “Wealth and the Household of God,” the practice of hospitality demands we mention upcoming gatherings of these friends of EP: Bridgefolk, August 21-24 Show Us the Way by Brian Volck (5/13/2009)

  [image]John 15:9-17 On March 12, 1977, Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ, was assassinated along with two companions as they drove toward evening mass through the fields near El Paisnal, El Salvador. Fr. Grande knew where he was going. During his five years as parish priest in nearby Aguilares, he formed Christian base communities, trained lay “delegates,” and vocally op...
• Pruning Time by Brian Volck (5/7/2009)
  [image]John 15:1-8 (Fifth Sunday of Easter) My friends, Chuck and Mary, some years ago turned a Henry County, Kentucky, tobacco farm into a vineyard and winery. They grow hay, keep a large vegetable garden and busy themselves with other crops, but wine is the farm’s major product. Recently, my wife and I drove down to visit. The two of us talked with Mary and her mother ...
• World Out of Balance by Brian Volck (4/7/2009)
  [image]“’Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead.’ The Misfit continued, ‘and He shouldn’t have done it. He thrown everything off balance.’” (Flannery O’Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find") I don’t understand Easter. I think I stand on firm theological ground saying this. Mysteries are necessarily beyond comprehension, a scandal and embarrassme...
• Closer to the Brink by Brian Volck (3/2/2009)
  Last Sunday’s readings (the First Sunday of Lent for the Western Church) were stories of destruction turned into rescue and peril into triumph. Noah, at God’s urging, saves a remnant of Creation and receives God’s covenantal promise. Jesus, upon being baptized, is immediately (euthus, one of Mark’s favorite words) driven into the wilderness (the verb, ekballein, suggests being tossed, hurled, or expelled, as in an exorcism) where he is unsuccessfully tempted by Satan before being waited upon by angels. This week – with the Revised Common and Catholic lectionaries diverging – peril and destruction are nearer than ever. In Mark 8:31-38, Jesus calls Peter “Satan,” for advising against the path of suffering...
• By Whose Authority? by Brian Volck (1/28/2009)
  Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Mark 1:21-28 A little word history from the Online Etymology Dictionary: Authority: First written appearance in English: 1230, autorite "book or quotation that settles an argument," from from L. nom. auctoritas ,"invention, advice, opinion, influence, command," from auctor "author." Used to mean "power to enforce obedience" is from 1393; meaning "people in authority" is from 1611. Authoritative first recorded 1609. Authoritarian is recorded from 1879. Power: First writte...
• Bit Parts by Brian Volck (12/25/2008)
  [image]Luke 2:22-40 Mary and Joseph, following the Law of Moses, bring their son to the temple in Jerusalem offering a sacrifice of two pigeons. The birds themselves were of little consequence, yet necessary, the material fulfillment of the Torah. As Luke’s Jesus later puts it, “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings? and not one of the...
• Pledging Allegiance by Brian Volck (11/19/2008)
  [image] Ezekiel 34, Psalm 100 (Catholic: Psalm 23), Ephesians 1:15-23 (Catholic: 1 Cor 15: 20-28), Matth...
• Choosing the Evil of Two Lessers by Brian Volck (9/5/2008)
  [image]Months ago, at the beginning of the presidential rutting season, I reflected here on the comment of a Jewish friend of mine, who said he never felt more alien in the United States than at Christmas. I’m nearly with him on that, seeing how far the consumer capitalist Winter Holiday runs from the appalling mystery of the Incarnation. Yet it’s hard to blame this culture and economy from...
• The Most Segregated Hour in America by Brian Volck (8/6/2008)
  [image]While longer on sociology than theology or ecclesiology (what can one expect from the news industry?), a recent CNN story on the difficulties inherent in integrating churches resonates with much said at the recent EP gathering....
• Imagining the Road We Share by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. -- Isaiah 40:3 (NIV) “I’ve been to conferences on race and racism before, but this is different,” I was told several times at this summer’s Ekklesia Project gathering in Chicago. I agree. There was far less nonsens...
• Behold, How Good and Pleasant by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]If you mourn the splintering of Christianity, if you pray that all may be one as Christ and the Father are one, and especially if you, in whatever Christian tradition you worship, yearn for a strong ecumenism in which Christians speak from the heart as the Holy Spirit guides them, refusing to merely paper over substantive differences, then there’s something you must hear. Fr. Joh...
• Gospel Nonviolence, Untranslated by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]I won’t weigh in on the latest election year “religion and politics” silliness involving Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and the Obama campaign except to note that Mr. Obama, who could easily have been much harder on Mr. Dobson, has said what any respectable candidate for the office of Commander i...
• Habeas Corpus by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]In the Common Lectionary for Protestant churches, tomorrow is the second Sunday after Pentecost. In Roman Catholic churches, however, it’s Corpus Christi: not a city in Texas, but the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. From Thursday until Sunday, more traditional Catholic churches will hold processions, and countless homilies wil...
• Jesus, Gates, and Sheep by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]In preparation for this year’s Triduum, the three solemn days leading into Easter, those in my parish chosen to proclaim scripture were expected to attend at least one group practice session. In that sense, at least, my parish...
• The Risen Lazarus is No Stranger by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]The eleventh chapter of John’s gospel brims with riches, providing the biblical verse nearly everyone remembers, “Jesus wept,” as well as the clearest possible statement of the functional principle underlying every City of Man, “It is better for one man to die than for the people ...
• Unexpected News by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  This past Sunday brought NCAA basketball just down the street from my parish on the campus of Xavier University in Cincinnati. We’d been warned parking would be a nightmare for the 11 o’clock mass, so we went instead to St. Joseph’s church, a largely African-American Catholic church in Cincinnati’s struggling West End. My family had worshipped there before – usually at the end of one of our parish’s “urban plunge” weekends – and knew we were in for a powerful experience. But what struck me more than the heartfelt singing and unselfconscious prayer was the force of scripture proclaimed by mouths familiar with the bitter taste of injustice. I would have heard the same text well-read in my own parish of overeducated, socially progressive white f...
• Lent is Scary; It Hurts Like Hell by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  [image]The Catholic lectionary readings for the Second Sunday of Lent include the Transfiguration account, a reading many Protestant traditions heard two weeks earlier. In any case, I have nothing to add to the vast libraries of commentary devoted to that gospel episode. It’s 2 Timothy that I have on my mind this Lenten week (Those of you hearing Romans 4 also have something meaty to dwell on. It’s...
• When Eight Days Were Fulfilled by Brian Volck (8/1/2008)
  "When eight days were fulfilled for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb." Luke 2:21 Back in grade school, I flipped through a highly modernized version of Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary, and came across this definition of “Sunday”: “In Christian countries, the day of the football game.” While I imagine my sons and I will take in a few downs together some time today, observing Christmas season its full duration is a virtue, brimming with goods “internal to the practice.” In addition to serving as a day to sleep in late, and watch parades and college football televised from warmer climates, January 1 has variously...