By Jim McCoy

The Day the Circus Left Town by Jim McCoy (1/26/2017)
...n beings]. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?</blockquote> Deitrich Bonhoeffer, “After Ten Years” <blockquote>Matthew does not delineate gradations of ‘church,‘ with the greatest of these residing somewhere beyond the local congregat...
Found in Translation by Jim McCoy (6/23/2016)
...ransmits us there, not in the sense of bringing information to the receiver but of putting the receiver in the place of the event – alive.” -- Denise Levertov, “Great Possessions” “The Translation of Elijah” has always seemed to me a strange title for the chariot of fire scene. “Translation,” I thought, was merely a matter of substituting words in one language for words in another lan...
When the Wars Are Done by Jim McCoy (4/8/2016)
...ms simpler when the wars are done. Jackie Robinson was a focus. At big, dark Number 42, forces converged: white hatred for his black pride, for his prophetic defiance and simply for his color, contested with black hope, the same black hope which Southern whites said did not exist (Boys of Summer, emphasis mine). </blockquote> “The past always seems simpler when the wars are ...
Stranded on Olympus by Jim McCoy (9/4/2015)
...s meant to provoke repentance and conversion. </blockquote> Luke Bretherton There are two kinds of people in the world, the saying goes – those who divide people into two kinds and those who don’t. The saying is, of course, tongue-in-cheek; a satire of, say, can...
Abiding Fruit by Jim McCoy (4/29/2015)
... down arrows of destruction. The great sun, so hospitably full of light, kind, friendly, was feeding, like a mother-nurse, the living tree, and was killing with pitiless fire the sundered branch.</blockquote> “As is the double effect of light,” Parker says, “so is the double effect of truth” (Apostolic Life, vol. 1, p. 167). Parker burns away any sentimentality in what is...
What Sort of Greeting? by Jim McCoy (12/19/2014)
... important announcement.’ A mysterious messenger breaks into the life of a young, poor, unmarried woman, telling her she will have a baby. About the baby, Gabriel said, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David.” Suddenly Mary has a primary role to play in God’s age-old love story. God had made ...
They Cried to the Lord by Jim McCoy (10/17/2014)
...orship is that the words of the texts will not only say something, but also do something. Paul Simon’s song “Wartime Prayers” helps bridge that divide. Simon, who admits he is as surprised as anyone at how God keeps showing up as the subject of his songs, has the poet’s gift of speaking in image rather than in proposition. He also unashamedly joins the chorus of the needy. <iframe src="//www.yo...
Life Threatening by Jim McCoy (8/29/2014)
...sis, that phrase is also a not-so-welcome description of a very prevalent misunderstanding of discipleship. Serious, earnest, studious? Certainly. But life threatening? That’s just not in our frame of reference. So what of Jesus’ words about crosses and losing our lives? The usual reading strategy, most often unspoken, is to assume that Jesus was “a special case,” or that the things Jesus ...
Passages by Jim McCoy (5/30/2014)
...e in Christ Jesus? And what does that look like?” (Free To Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line, p. 61). Given the demographics of the part of the county where I live in western North Carolina, I could be totally absorbed in congregational life and never even have to consider that question. In fact, by exhorting my flock to become more involved in “church” as it’s commonly understo...
Break in the Cup by Jim McCoy (3/20/2014)
... we have to do is find that one person who will make us forever happy, and how hard could that possibly be? <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CkBb6ghk7v0?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="400" height="225"></iframe> The couple in the song have the dreamy-eyed notion that the nectar of their love should slake every possible thirst. As a result, they drive each other crazy because they fail to ...
The Rupture of Impossibility by Jim McCoy (1/9/2014)
... First, the trance of things vile, repugnant, unclean; animals strictly and expressly forbidden by the purity code. Peter’s visceral response showed that he had been formed by what he had inherited and had always believed to be God’s Law. Then, the “inwardly perplexed” journey to Caesarea and the entrance into Cornelius’ household. Even to get to this point, Alison says,...
Broken Symmetry by Jim McCoy (10/10/2013)
...terton imagines that if a mathematical creature from outer space saw a human body, he would at once assume that the human body is a duplicate. That is, a person is really two people: the one on the right resembling exactly the one on the left. An arm on the right, one on the left; a leg on the right and a leg on the left; the same number of fingers at the end of each arm, the same number of toes. ...
Sacrifice by Jim McCoy (8/8/2013)
...is the multitude of your sacrifices? Trample my courts no more. Bringing offerings is futile. I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your appointed festivals my soul hates. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. </blockquote> This is the message to faithful temple-goers! How could things go so wrong? Heschel e...
Where in the World? by Jim McCoy (5/16/2013)
...s of contemporary history. He details some then-current events: the shootings and killings in Mississippi, the war in Rhodesia. Then he says, “Pious meditations on how rough Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus had it are meaningless unless I have some response to the sufferings in the flesh today. Events are manifesting a reality which is present. We’re living in Advent. What’s happening around us...
A Cheer for an Invisible Parade by Jim McCoy (3/1/2013)
... Fleming Rutledge. The impasse of different factions is symptomatic of “a perilous state of affairs” (And God Spoke to Abraham). Rutledge’s emergency room prescription? Six months of intensive preaching, teaching and small group study of Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55). This “unknown prophet of the exile” tells the whole glorious Story of God which alone can save the Church from itself. ...
A Multitude of Ruptures by Jim McCoy (12/19/2012)
...n doing their vital and admirable work are described as “compassionate, not preachy.” Those of us who not only have to preach but believe we should preach have been faced with how in God’s name do we preach the last two Sundays of Advent 2012, and how to do so in such a way in which compassion and preaching are not pitted against each other. This week I’ve been driven yet again to a ...
Strange New World by Jim McCoy (10/11/2012)
...…. Seek the Lord and live…. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you.” Check. Got it. Now what? Right away Amos makes it known that the right response is not as obvious as one might think. “Forget about going to the traditional holy places like Bethel or Gilgal,” he says. Even though sacrifices and rituals were re...
Between the Narrative and the Psalm by Jim McCoy (7/25/2012)
...s. I have been stripped bare…." - John Edwards, August, 2008 "I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. There is no one else re...
Preaching the Terrors (and Wonders) by Jim McCoy (6/21/2012)
... full of holy terrors as it is of holy wonders,” and while we’d like “to approach the terrors as stray bullets outside God’s plan,” the fact is that we cannot avoid either the terrors or the wonders without avoiding part of the truth (“Preaching the Terrors,” Leadership Journal, Spring 1992). The surest way NOT to preach the terrors is to jerry-build so-called “spi...
A Token Performance by Jim McCoy (3/28/2012)
...geant as part of a gathering of area churches. Several of us chosen ones wore either a crown of rejoicing, a crown of righteousness, a crown of glory, or a crown of life. As the appropriate Scripture passage was read, each one of us, dressed as royalty, processed down a long auditorium aisle and placed our crowns on a stage altar. The producer/director/stage manager/costume designer (the sister ...
The Goon Priest by Jim McCoy (1/11/2012)
... with musicians? (They might have to tone down the bohemian debauchery a little bit). In Egan’s novel, the Bay Area punk band member confesses that her cohorts live privileged lives in houses of “Easter-egg colors,” but “the second Scotty lets the garage door down, we’re suddenly enraged.” In the rewrite, you’d have the honest soul who admits to the details of a bourgeois life and to...
The Terrible Speed of Mercy by Jim McCoy (11/2/2011)
...ove-the-fold NY Times articles and primetime NPR stories. This truly bewildering sensation spawned billboards, talking head reports, and “end of the world” parties. I still shake my head and wonder if the madness in May was not only Harold Camping’s, but also biblical eschatology’s proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. Did the words we needed to speak six months ago have the unintended...
Signposts and Seeds by Jim McCoy (8/17/2011)
...text for the lectionary passages of the day. It is worth wrestling with how these insights shine light on parts of the texts that can be overlooked in more conventional readings: seeing through the “official” policy of “justified,” veiled violence by telling the story from the perspective of victim; turning “the logic of sacred violence” and blood sacrifice on its head, unveiling God’s revelatio...
The Full Gospel Anthem by Jim McCoy (8/1/2008)
...h a resort ministry group. We had just finished an unforgettable feast of trout and country ham at the Jarrett House. Now the little church across the street was pleasantly filled to hear us. The evening could not have been more perfect. We sang about the goodness of God and the beauty of God’s creation, about understanding ourselves to be persons o...