By C. Christopher Smith

• The Way the World Works? by C. Christopher Smith (5/29/2012)
  First Sunday after Pentecost Trinity Sunday Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17 Two of our scripture passages for today – the story of Nicodemus from John 3 and Paul’s admonition to the church in Rome from Romans 8 – wrestle with the nature of spirit and flesh.  Throughout the history of the Christian tradition, interpretation (or mis-interpretation) of passages like these has led many Christians into the sort of gnostic dualism that condemns the flesh and elevates the spirit. In recent years, a subtle sort of Christian Gnosticism – that literary critic Harold Bloo...
• The Deep Hope of Easter by C. Christopher Smith (3/22/2012)
  Fifth Sunday of Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34. What is the new covenant that God has made in Christ and what does it mean for our life in Christ today? This question is an essential one raised by today’s Old Testament text.  The ways in which Christians have answered this question through the centuries have often led to anti-Semitic attitudes and oppression of the Jews.  The gist of the reasoning has been that the Jews screwed up and God had to start over from scratch and now the Christians are the people on whom the blessing of God rests (and, of course, the Jews are outsiders, heretics and the ones who had Jesus crucified, and thus worthy of having all manner ...
• Out in the Wilderness by C. Christopher Smith (1/3/2012)
  Mark 1:4-11 First Sunday after the Epiphany The Gospel of Mark opens with a brief telling of the story of John the Baptizer. What are we to make of this crazy fellow who lives out in the wilderness, wears clothes made of camel hair and eats locusts and honey? For the first century readers of this Gospel, this language with which Mark describes John conjured up images of Elijah. “Just as a gaunt bearded face and a stovepipe hat would immediately conjure up the image of Abe Lincoln for those socialized into modern American mythology” writes Ched Myers, “so would John’s garb have invoked the great prophet Elijah for Mark’s readers.” John is a prophet in the same vein as Elijah, h...
• The Deeper and Richer Life of Gratitude by C. Christopher Smith (10/25/2011)
  Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37 “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever.”

  Gratitude is at the core of our identity as the people of God.  God has created us and continually provides for us.  Even when times get tough in our broken world, when we’re hungry and thirsty and our soul is fainting within us (v. 5), God hears our cries and delivers us.  The Israelite people certainly knew their share of troubles – being slaves in Egypt, wandering in the desert for forty years, going into exile, and so on – but yet the Psalms, their prayerbook that gave shape to th...

• Embodying God’s Unity in a Fragmented World by C. Christopher Smith (8/9/2011)
  Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Psalm 133, Romans 11:1-2, 29-32

  Psal[image]m 133 begins with a refrain that will be familiar to many of our ears: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!,” but it is the powerful imagery of the latter two verses of this brief psalm that drive home the depths of the Go...