By Jessie Larkins

There’s a New <del>Kid /</del> King In Town by Jessie Larkins (12/28/2016)
...ittle Jesus Boy (1934) One of my favorite Christmas Eve memories from childhood is sitting in the dim light of the sanctuary at my grandparent’s Methodist church in Richmond, VA. Every year the same heavy set man with the deep baritone voice would sit on a stool in the middle of the chancel area with his guitar and sing an acoustic solo of Robert MacGimsey’s 1934 Christmas tune, Sweet Littl...
Fear of Beggars by Jessie Larkins (9/21/2016)
... their cars, full of items like bottled water and socks, to avoid passing cash to the homeless that live on the streets of our town. (Because, you know, drugs and stuff). I have had folks confess to me that the only reason they give money to the man or woman they pass on the corner is out of guilt, but they know deep down that their $5 bill is more about them feeling good than helping the poor. ...
New Endings, New Beginnings by Jessie Larkins (7/14/2016)
...y cries have been “Come, Lord Jesus” more often than they’ve been jokes or hashtags. When I read the Old Testament lesson appointed for this coming weekend and hear Amos’ denunciation of 8th century Judean social, economic, and religious practices, it sounds so familiar. Income inequality, corrupt business practices that benefit the wealthy, religion that’s nothing more than form without su...
Pain and Hope by Jessie Larkins (6/14/2016)
...to share your grace. Amen. --Guerillas of Grace, 28 These are tough days for those who mount pulpits to proclaim the Word of God. Sitting, as I am, on this Monday before Sunday, wondering how to write faithfully about these appointed texts for the week, I find my thoughts repeatedly drifting to my newsfeed. These stories cry out for the preacher to say a word about them, too. This we...
The Power of Fear by Jessie Larkins (12/29/2015)
...d the boy looked like he was 20. They said they told him to stand down. He was a large black boy in a park and they were afraid. People do stupid and sometimes horrible things when they are afraid. As a country we’re being told that we should be afraid of a lot of things lately: immigrants, Muslims, crazy men with guns, black men (with or without guns), ISIS, the jobs report, tap water. We’re...
Helpless Before the Throne by Jessie Larkins (10/14/2015)
.... We're going to have such a strong military that nobody, nobody is going to mess with us. We're not going to have to use it." -Donald Trump, September 2015 "I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by thee or laid aside by thee. Exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be f...
Dream or Deliverance? by Jessie Larkins (7/21/2015)
...hionable clothes, a beautiful family (with approximately 2.5 kids and a dog) who attend all the best schools. I was recently informed that in 2015, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/07/04/american-dream/11122015/">the American Dream costs $130,000 a year to attain.</a> If you’re feeling left out, you’re in good company. Seven of eight American households don’t m...
Rejecting the God Who Is by Jessie Larkins (6/3/2015)
...ain strength through the tactics of non-violent resistance, the establishment grew increasingly uncomfortable. White pastors across the South, in an attempt to keep the peace, appealed to King to be patient. Those with less sympathy to the cause of Civil Rights were quick to vilify and attack the calling and character of the preacher-King. The great irony of all this was that it was taking pla...
Easter People by Jessie Larkins (4/7/2015)
...s a ‘Easter people’?” That was the question that a 4-year old child in my congregation asked me on the way out the door on Easter Sunday just a few days ago. We had just sung one of my favorite Easter hymns and the unfamiliar expression in the song caught his attention. Kneeling down beside him I told him that “Easter people” are people who lived their lives as if the story we just told about ...
Descent Into Life by Jessie Larkins (2/17/2015)
... serves as tender, hauling you to port. What’s most apparent in the dark is how the heart’s embrace, if manifestly intermittent, is really quite reliable, and very nearly bides as if another sought to join you there. -Scott Cairns, from Philokalia I’ve often wondered what thoughts ran through Noah’s head as he stood at the door of the ark and prepared to disembar...
Eyes to See by Jessie Larkins (6/13/2012)
...The prophet Isaiah warned, and Mark quotes just prior to the telling of these parables, that people would “look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand” (Mark 4:12). Like Isaiah’s warning, the passage from 1 Samuel plays off of this same distinction of looking (nabat) but not seeing or understanding (ra’a). Samuel’s initial instinct to ano...
The Far End of the Net by Jessie Larkins (1/17/2012)
...ts calling to be a conduit of God’s grace for all of the nations rather than its terminus, and felt both sympathy and anger towards a self-centered prophet more concerned with his public standing as a prophet than with the destiny of an entire nation. For Jews, the entirety of Jonah is read out publicly in the synagogue each year on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the...
Jesus is Coming - Look Busy by Jessie Larkins (11/9/2011)
...ch year. In my own United Methodist tradition this also happens to be the time of year when Finance committees are urgently preparing 2012 budgets and pastors are nervously writing stewardship sermons in hopes of funding those budgets. This weekend’s gospel text seems to play right into this pattern with a pre-packaged message about stewardship lined up for the occasion. Investing our time, tal...
Follow the Leader by Jessie Larkins (8/22/2011)
...l Peace. Even at a young age, I can clearly remember sensing the irony and nonsense of that phrase. Who makes war to get peace? Now I understand why its author would have suggested that the dominant ethos of our time is the notion of perpetual war for perpetual peace. Now I see why the world is so easy to believe that the means for achieving peace in the world need not match the ends. Why? W...
Apokatastasis and the Birthday of the Church by Jessie Larkins (5/27/2009)
... in my introductory class on Church history was the word, apokatastasis. The word, which is Greek, most simply means “the end will be like the beginning” and is most commonly used to refer to the idea of a universal restoration of creation. At the time, we first year students cataloged this word away along with a long litany of other doctrines and heresies ...
Asleep at the Wheel by Jessie Larkins (3/10/2009)
...lose to home. What has happened to our practice of worship that it has become yet another instance of a religious institution “going through the motions” rather than true, life-shaping (rather than sleep inducing) encounter with the living God? I don’t know about you, but a few cattle and sheep in the narthex of my church might be just the ticket to breaking our somnolence and accommodation to...
Is Your World Shaped By the Gospel? by Jessie Larkins (2/4/2009)
...ft for us, then, is “Do we also feel that obligation to proclaim the gospel in all times and places?” For those of us who preach and teach on a regular basis, we can easily brush past this question without much thought. Of course we are proclaiming the gospel! The real question for us, as well as for each member of our churches, is whether or not gospel proclamation has so shaped t...
Epiphany 3B by Jessie Larkins (1/20/2009)
...lls were created in order to slide off in 6’ pieces of molded plastic. My brother’s primary raison d’être is white water kayaking. He has traveled all over the world finding and conquering the world’s wildest rivers and creeks. If we didn’t share the hallmark Shuman nose, you might wonder how we are related. When it comes to taking risks, we are as different as night and day. One tim...
Come, Lord Jesus by Jessie Larkins (11/27/2008)
...ason when the Church’s prayer is the urgent and expectant: “Come, Lord Jesus.” For most folks, the Advent hymns and prayers invoking Emmanuel, God-with-us, conjure up domesticated images of babies, a glowing virgin mother, and churches gathered to sing carols and raise candles high into the air. These are comfortable images for us. We like to be in control of our lives and our futures—and this Chr...
Leadership by Imitation by Jessie Larkins (10/22/2008)
...amed on minorities or the poor, is blamed on a failure of leadership in government and industry. For too long the standard of worth for CEOs and economic strategists has been a cut-throat measure of greed and self-interest. In the religious world, too, the decline in attendance and influence of mainline congregations and denominations has been attributed to a lack of effective pastoral leadership....
Forgiveness and Evangelism by Jessie Larkins (9/17/2008)
...in a car that was in a minor accident in a local shopping center parking lot. Both cars, the one I was in as well as the one that sideswiped us, were traveling at an appropriate parking lot speed of about 2 mph. The collision, which put a fairly large dent in the front fender of my friend’s car and a crack in the front headlight on the other car, resulted in no injuries, no irreparable damage, and...
Should I Stay or Should I Go? by Jessie Larkins (8/1/2008)
... immediately jump to the conclusion of Luke’s report in Acts 1 when the angels appear to ask the disciples: “Why do you stand looking up at heaven?” I hear in this question an affirmation of my own need for action—the angels are telling those disciples to get on with it already. There is work to be done witnessing, proclaiming, releasing the captives, caring for the sick, and forgiving enemies, am...
What Do You See? by Jessie Larkins (8/1/2008)
... to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” -- John 9:40-41 When I was in seminary, one of the questions that we were instructed to ask ourselves in any ministerial context was: “Where and who are the invisible people?” This question was intended to help us to find those people in ...