By Kelly Johnson

• Don't Panic (The End is Good News) by Kelly Johnson (11/8/2016)
  Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 65:17-25 OR Malachi 4:1-2a 2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13 Luke 21:5-19 Updated Post At the end of the liturgical year, as darkness falls each night a couple of minutes sooner than the last, the church turns our attention to the end of all things. We are mortal and our world will come to an end, for each of us and for all of us, and this both terrifies and fascinates us. People love stories about the end of the world. The long winter is coming, meteors hurtle towa...
• Slavery and the Cost of Discipleship by Kelly Johnson (8/31/2016)
  Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Philemon 1:1-21 Tradition supplies a backstory for the short book Philemon: the slave Onesimus had run away from his owner, seeking refuge in the anonymity of Rome. But there he encountered Paul and was converted. In fact, from the text, we know very little about what how Onesimus ended up with Paul and less about what followed. Still the letter continues to speak to us about power and the cost of discipleship, a cost spelled out in no uncertain terms in today’s gospel. Paul’s “dear friend and co-worker” Philemon, a believer whose faith Paul praises, had a slave. It shocks us now to realize that the early Christian communities included not on...
• Planning Our 2009 Gathering by Kelly Johnson (1/19/2009)
  Over the years, many EP endorsers have asked us to hold a Gathering dedicated to talking about economic issues, and at the end of last summer's gathering, the board agreed that we would move that direction for next year. Little did we know at that moment just how big an issue the economy was about to become in the U.S. But as the planning committee began working, first we had trouble sorting out exactly which kind of economic issues we would talk about. Then, although usually a gathering is organized around a scriptural passage or theme, we could not settle on just one. Ultimately what struck us was less the importance of any one passage and more the importance of the scriptural story as the story of God’s economy. Or to put it another way, what struck us was the idea that the true eco...