Posts from 2009

• Wild Grace Abounding by Joel Shuman (1/2/2009)
  Epiphany - Jan. 6 Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12 In Canto I of Dante’s Purgatorio (the second of three volumes of the Divine Comedy), Dante and his guide Virgil climb from the depths of hell to emerge tired and dirty on the shores of the island of the Mountain of Purgation. They are immediately confronted by the appointed guardian of the island, the Roman orator Cato of Utica (d. 46 BCE), who demands they give an account of themselves. Dante is shocked by their interlocutor, not because of his question, but because he is there at all; not only did Cato die a pagan a generation before the birth of Jesus, he took his own life in protest of the emerging power of the then nascent Roman Empire. Surely ...
• Hope by Debra Dean Murphy (1/2/2009)
  When I was in the fourth grade my teacher, Mr. VanNostran, asked us to write our own definition of the word “hope.” I don’t remember the occasion or the context for the assignment; I don’t even remember what I wrote. But I do remember that a few days later, Mr. Van (as we called him) read aloud another student’s definition. The boy, whose name was Paul, was absent that day, and Mr. Van took the opportunity, I think, to teach the rest of us something about ourselves, something about the world, and something about the word “hope.” Paul was a nice kid—he was quiet and he was poor. Living as we did in rural West Virginia, none of us in that class of fourth graders came from wealthy families. Most of us came from similar economic backgrounds. We were all of modest means—some a lit...
• Amahl and the Night Visitors by Debra Dean Murphy (1/5/2009)
  O Woman, you may keep the gold; the child we seek doesn't need our gold. On love, on love alone he will build his kingdom. His pierced hand will hold no scepter; his haloed head will wear no crown. His might will not be built on your toil. Swifter than lightning he will soon walk among us; he will bring us new life, and receive our death. And the keys to his city belong to the poor. "Amahl and the Night Visitors" Gian-Carlo Menotti, 1950 In 1950 the National Broadcasting Corporation commissioned Italian composer Gian-Carlo Menotti to write an opera for live broadcast on the fledgling, new medium of television. On Christmas Eve of the following year, Amahl and the Night Visitors premiered on NBC.<...
• Remember Your Baptism and Be Thankful by Erin Martin (1/6/2009)
  Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11 I remember my baptism very well. It was fifteen years ago, and I felt that as a recent college graduate I was at a crossroads in my life. I remember that I wanted to start new, to wash away some of the painful choices I had made in my life and recommit myself to God. My mother was attending a Baptist church at the time, and so I sat before her pastor and expressed my earnest desire to be baptized. When he lowered me into the water and then raised me up again, the first air I breathed felt like new life to me. I felt like I had died and been raised with Christ. Years later as an ordained Methodist minister the majority of the baptisms I perform look nothing like my own. Mostly I hold infants in my arms an...
• Heaven and Earth by Debra Dean Murphy (1/13/2009)
  Second Sunday After the Epiphany: 1 Samuel 3:1-20; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51 Each year on the second Sunday after the Epiphany, the lectionary steers us away from the Synoptics, where we have been immersed in birth narratives, visiting magi, and the baptism of Jesus, and into the first part of John’s gospel, which contains none of these historical particulars. But the Johannine detour is significant for Epiphany, for these texts deal with the revelation of Jesus to Israel and to the world, making the claim that this One from Nazareth (“can anything good come from there?”) is the eternal Logos, Word made flesh, whose glory we have beheld. It is the calling of the disciples that preoccupies the...
• King and the Kingdom by Debra Dean Murphy (1/19/2009)
  Today as we commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it's easy to forget how despised King was in his own time by many on the right and the left, by many within the church and outside it. As the frequency of his public speeches increased toward the end of his life so did his visible rage; as his preaching evolved in the last years, he moved from what Richard Lischer has called a “homiletics of identification” to a “homiletics of confrontation.” The radical politics of the Kingdom that King envisioned—for the church and the nation—did not endear him to either; it got him killed. As author 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...
• Epiphany 3B by Jessie Larkins (1/20/2009)
  Mark 1:14-20 I have a brother who is a bit of an adrenaline junky. In many ways he is not unlike most 26 year old boys who have no house payment, car payment, girlfriend, wife or kids: footloose and fancy free. On the other hand, there is something quite unique about my brother. It is the fact that, on average, he risks his life 2-3 times per day. You see, my brother has made a life for himself out of pushing the envelope. If you were to ask him, he would tell you that airplanes were invented to be jumped out of, mountains were made to be crawled up and then skied down, and waterfalls 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...
• 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...
• Is Your World Shaped By the Gospel? by Jessie Larkins (2/4/2009)
  1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39 (Epiphany 5B) Each of the New Testament lessons this week make reference to Jesus and Paul’s felt responsibility to proclaim the gospel message wherever they were. In the gospel, after healing Simon’s mother-in-law as well as many others who were brought to him, Jesus demands of the disciples that they move onto other towns so that he might “proclaim the message; for that is what [he] came to do” (vs. 38). Similarly, Paul speaks to the Corinthian Christians about the obligation he feels to proclaim the gospel to all people at all times. The question left 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 th...
• I Do Choose… by Erin Martin (2/11/2009)
  [image]Epiphany 6B - Mark 1:40-45 The healing stories of Jesus are among my favorite stories of the gospels. There is something deeply honest about persons in considerable pain—a woman bent low, a man born blind, a father pleading on behalf of his ailing daughter—coming to Jesus in desperation and placing all their hopes upon Jesus’ willingness t...
• Light for the Journey by Debra Dean Murphy (2/18/2009)
  Transfiguration Sunday - Mark 9:2-9 The Gospel Lesson for Transfiguration Sunday suffers from something that lectionary texts often do: It begins in the middle of a longer narrative, the whole of which helps to situate and make sense of the lifted-out passage under consideration. The Mark reading begins with: "Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves." We then go on to get engrossed in the familiar story of how the appearance of Jesus changes; how Moses and Elijah suddenly show up; how Peter characteristically misreads the scene. But what happened six days earlier? Could it have any bearing on the journey to the mountaintop and on what transpired there?by Debra Dean Murphy (2/26/2009)

  You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy . . . Psalm 16:11 It is fitting that we read, pray, and sing the Psalms during Lent—this season of the church year when we experience the full gamut of human emotions: sadness, doubt, confusion, rage, praise, thanksgiving, joy. The Psalms convey all of these emotions and more, and thus they place front and center something often lacking in our common discourse: honest speech. In their grappling with loss and abandonment, fear and pain, and in their ecstatic surrender to worship, praise, and adoration, the Psalms—the lamenting ones, the cursing ones, and the praising ones—help us to speak truthfully before God and one another. Not for nothing, the Psalms have bee...
• 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...
• Asleep at the Wheel by Jessie Larkins (3/10/2009)
  John 2:13-22; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; Exodus 20:1-17 (Lent 3B) There is a joke that occasionally passes through pastors’ circles now and again with a bit of light-hearted commentary on the passion (or lack thereof) of worship in a particular pastor’s church. Says one pastor: “My congregation is so dead in worship that if someone were to have a heart attack, when the EMTs arrived they’d wonder to whom they should attend.” Those of us who worship regularly in congregations that bear any resemblance to that description chuckle uneasily at this joke. Yet truth be told, it hits a little too close 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 s...
• For God So Loved the World by Debra Dean Murphy (3/19/2009)
  Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:13-21 (Fourth Sunday in Lent) With a group of friends, I'm reading a new book entitled Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist. Written by a Roman Catholic priest--Dominican and Englishman Timothy Radcliffe--and commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury as his Lent Book for 2009, this text is interesting reading for us American Methodists in the suburban south. In a chapter on preaching (the book takes in the whole of Word and Table), Radcliffe warns against taming the Bible's strangeness in the Sunday sermon. "The beauty of the Bible," he says, "is that it is not clear, simple and unambiguous. Its words are puzzling, intriguing and slippery." He could have been talking about the appointed texts fo...
• Flunking Lent by Debra Dean Murphy (3/23/2009)
  Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-12; John 12:20-33 (Fifth Sunday in Lent) "I have flunked Lent. I flunk it every year." Fleming Rutledge writes these words in one of her many fine Holy Week sermons. But they're my words, too, this week, and perhaps yours also. We've flunked Lent. We always do. But this is not the bad news it may at first appear to be. When we set out on Ash Wednesday every year to observe a holy Lent, we pray Psalm 51 together, asking for mercy and cleansing, for wisdom, for an erasing of the record that stands against us—a blotting out of our iniquities. We pray that God will "create in us a clean heart and put a new and...
• This Year in Jerusalem! by Kyle Childress (3/27/2009)
  I’m back from the Holy Land; tired and exhausted yet inspired, challenged, and eager to share the stories with you. My experience of pilgrimage to the Holy Land was almost overwhelming. Every day, everywhere we went, there were biblical sites, holy sites, and historical sites, piled upon one another and impossible to see them all. Galilee was beautiful. We were there during the rainy season and everything was green (green by Galilean standards). Standing on the top of the Cliffs of Arbela overlooking the western edge of the Sea of Galilee (which is no more than a modest-sized lake) one can see the very route from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee that Jesus walked. Furthermore, clustered along the lake’s coastline, all within view because they are no more than a few miles from one anot...
• Spoilin’ for a Fight by Joel Shuman (4/2/2009)
  [image]Mark 11:1-11 (John 12:12-16); Psalm 118 (Palm Sunday/Liturgy of the Palms) In her wonderful autobiography An American Childhood, Annie Dillard fondly recalls her Sunday School days in her parents’ mainline Protestant church. She notes of her introduction to the Bible, “The Bible’s was an unlikely, movi...
• 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...
• Resurrection and Torture by Debra Dean Murphy (4/21/2009)
  [image]Luke 24:36b-48 (Third Sunday of Easter) "Torture may be considered a kind of perverse liturgy, for in torture the body of the victim is the ritual site where the state's power is manifested in its most awesome form." - William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist...
• The Good Shepherd by Debra Dean Murphy (5/2/2009)
  Psalm 23; 1 John 3:1-24; John 10:11-18 (Fourth Sunday of Easter) One problem with the many references to sheep in the Bible is that so few of us have any real contact with these animals. The metaphor is simply lost on us. What does it mean to be compared to sheep? The little we’ve heard or read about them—that they’re not particularly bright—does not endear us to the metaphor. But here’s the thing about Good Shepherd Sunday: it’s not about sheep at all. It is about a shepherd—the "Good Shepherd"—but even that designation is charged with meanings that can be lost on us. “I am the good shepherd,” says Jesus. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). The life of a shepherd w...
• 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 ...
• America's Bible by Debra Dean Murphy (5/12/2009)
  [image]by Debra Dean Murphy It's a little surprising that it took this long but here it is, The American Patriot's Bible, t...
• 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...
• Dan Brown's America by Ekklesia Project (5/19/2009)
  [image]From the New York Times: The movie treatment of his novel, “Angels and Demons,” is cleaning up at the box office this week. The sequel to “The DaVinci Code,” due out in November, might buoy the publishing industry through the recession. And if you want to understand the state of American religion, you nee...
• Ascension Politics by Debra Dean Murphy (5/19/2009)
  [image]Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53 (The Feast of the Ascension) St. Augustine considered the Feast of the Ascension the crown of all Christian festivals. Today we may give it an obligatory nod as we make our way liturgically from Easter to Pentecost, but we’re often not quite sure what to do with it theologically, pastorally, exegetically. The clunky lit...
• 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 Apokatastasis and the Birthday of the Church by Jessie Larkins (5/27/2009)

  [image]Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27; John 15: 26-27, 16: 4b-15 (Pentecost Sunday) One of the first things that I remember learning as a seminary student 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 i...
• The Trinity and THE SHACK by Debra Dean Murphy (6/1/2009)
  [image] If you are a savvy and astute reader of Trinitarian theology who can elucidate the fine distinctions between, say, Augustine and Origen or Moltmann and Marshall or Zizioulas and LaCugna, you may or may not be up on the latest (actually, the only) treatise on the Trinity to capture the popular imagination: a little self-published tome called ...
• Just a Kid. Just a Seed. Just a Church. by Joel Shuman (6/11/2009)
  [image]1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34 He was just a kid, so young and apparently insignificant that his own father didn’t consider him worthy even to attend the sacrifice offered by the traveling prophet Samuel. Sure, he was good looking, and he was tough, and he had some talent, but by and large everyone who knew him assumed he’d ...
• A Nation of Prisons &amp; 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 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...
• The Hemorrhaging Woman by Debra Dean Murphy (6/24/2009)
  [image] Mark 5:21-43 (Fourth Sunday After Pentecost) (Image: Holy Spirit Dance, Gwen Meharg, watercolor.) When we read the story of Jesus healing the hemorrhaging woman (or a leper or ...
• 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 ...
• 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...
• A Great Gathering by Ekklesia Project (7/16/2009)
  [image]Thanks to everyone for a great gathering. One sign of how important our topics were is we began conversations much larger than we could carry on during the time allotted. We're hoping we can continue our work together through an ongoing sharing on bLogos and FB. Wealth, especially money, divides the church. It can and does also become part of our sharing, our communion (
• Paving Stones on the Road to Hell by Ekklesia Project (7/16/2009)
  [image]Andrew Bacevich looks to novelist Graham Greene’s The Quiet American for insights on US Foreign Policy....
• 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...
• Sex in Public by Debra Dean Murphy (7/21/2009)
  [image]2 Samuel 11:1-15 (Eighth Sunday After Pentecost) “So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.” For the next two Sundays, churches that follow the Revised Common Lectionary will hear the familiar story of...
• On Receiving Gifts by Halden Doerge (7/31/2009)
  [image]by Halden Doerge (2 Sam 11:26–12:13a; Ps 51:1-12; Eph 4:1-16; John 6:24-35) The readings for this week offer an odd combi...
• 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...
• Kings? by Kyle Childress (8/13/2009)
  [image]I Kings 2: 10-12, 3: 3-14; Psalm 111 or Psalm 34: 9-14; Ephesians 5: 15-20; What to Wear in Battle by Doug Lee (8/20/2009)

  [image]1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-43; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69 The culmination to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has ...
• Preparing for the Gift by Ragan Sutterfield (8/26/2009)
  [image]Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, The Kingdom’s Gatekeepers by Jenny Williams (9/2/2009)

  [image]James 2:1-10, 11-17; Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Ouch. James must have been visiting churches in No...
• Setting Nature on Fire by Halden Doerge (9/10/2009)
  [image] James 3:1-12 As a young person growing up in the evangelical church I remember always considering James to be my favorite book of the Bible. In reflecting back on why I found it so important at the time I think what drew me to James was the sort of clarity I seemed to find there. It is certainly n...
• Kids in Church by Debra Dean Murphy (9/16/2009)
  [image] Mark 9:30-37 (Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost) Images of Jesus embracing cherub-faced children have been irresistible throughout the centuries. Sentimental art within the last hundred years or so has given us the “sweet Victorian Nanny Jesus” (Philip Yancey’s memorable description), patting boys and girl...
• 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);
• The Koinonia Story in a Nutshell by Ekklesia Project (9/25/2009)
  Thanks to Church of the Servant King in Eugene, Oregon Koinonia Farm Director Bren Dubay and Ekklesia Project Director Brent Laytham met during Pentecost 2008. Bren was visiting the folks in Eugene to learn how another community shares life together. Brent was there as a guest speaker celebrating the birth of the church with Church of the Servant King. Inspired by Brent’s teaching, Bren promised she’d attend the 2008 Gathering. This led to her coming back in 2009 and co-presenting a workshop, “Doing Business for the Kingdom or the Empire,” with Chi-Ming Chien of Dayspring Technologies. Many of those involved in the Ekklesia Project know of Koinonia Farm and Clarence Jordan. Clarence, his wife Florence and their friends Mabel and Martin England founded Koinonia (Greek for 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...
• Some Pastoral Reflections on Planning (and Its Opposite) by Michael Bowling (10/7/2009)
  Some Christians are reluctant to talk about the future. While there may be 'biblical' reasons for it, that reluctance can have a destructive effect on our life together in Christ as the Church. Whether it is the cumulative effect of misreading numerous Scriptures or an over-reaction to those who plan in arrogance and rigidity, the simple fact is that planning is an important part of all sustained work. Too many read Jesus' words "..do not be anxious about tomorrow" as "anti-planning" Scriptures, when Jesus was simply teaching that in God's kingdom we can trust in God's ultimate provision. Or, anti-planners like to reference James 4:13-17, which is more a cautionary note for those who trust in their wealth and their ability to produce wealth. Of course, compulsive planners ...
• Thanks, but No Thanks by Kyle Childress (10/8/2009)
  [image] Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22: 1-15; Hebrews 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31 Around our church some of us have undertaken the simple task of teaching our children basic manners, especially things like speaking clearly, looking a person in the eye, standing straight, and shaking hands with a good firm grip. One 9-year-old boy, who came to church when he was four from an abusive...
• 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...
• Coming Home with Shouts of Joy by Ragan Sutterfield (10/22/2009)
  [image] Jeremiah 31:7-9; Psalm 126; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52 “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51). It’s a striking question Jesus ...
• A Christian Memorial Day by Jenny Williams (10/27/2009)
  [image] Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6; John 11:32-44 Where I live, remembering and honoring the dead is celebrated annually in May. Over Memorial Day weeken...
• Religious But Not Spiritual by Debra Dean Murphy (11/11/2009)
  [image] Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18), 19-25 Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together..." ...
• Ultimate Imagination by Doug Lee (11/18/2009)
  [image] Daniel 7:9-14; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-38a Some years ago, a friend of ours who was a major player on the Nigerian political scene nearly met an untimely death but survived. After confronting his ...
• Spring Will Come Before We Know It by Ragan Sutterfield (11/25/2009)
  [image] I have been shopping for trees lately—apples, figs, maybe a few persimmons. It will be couple of years before the trees bare fruit and now, as we move into December the trees are dormant, reserving their sugars to live out a time when the sun won’t be around enough to power their life. The trees are moving to their reserve supplies; they are waiting until the spring. ...
• 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...
• I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy by Jenny Williams (12/9/2009)
    Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18 The second most popular Advent question asked in the United Methodist Churches I’ve served is “Why is there one pink candle on the Advent wreath?” (THE most popular question has of course been “When can we start singing Christmas carols?”) The pink candle is lit on the third Sunday of Advent because since the 10th century, that day has been recognized by the catholic church as Gaudete, or Joy, Sunday. (See one history here.) As early as the fifth ce...
• A Political Pregnancy (and the Beatles) by Jenny Williams (12/15/2009)
      Luke 1:39-46, 47-55; Micah 5:2-5a Though it is not my regularly scheduled week to share a lectionary reflection with you, I was struck with some thoughts this morning while I prepared for Sunday’s sermon. Charles L. Aaron, writing in this month’s Lectionary Homiletics on the gospel text for Advent 4C, takes the two Lukan pericopes as they come in Luke, one after the other, rather than separating them into the Visitation (to be read as the gospel lesson) and the Magnificat (to be read as the Psalter or the Canticle for the day). In doing so, he contrasts the innocence of...
• As Good As Done by Doug Lee (12/16/2009)
    Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55 We arrived at the village and were greeted by the headman and the welcoming committee. As the honored guests, we were made to sit on chairs under the mango tree. The only others who sat on chairs were men. The women and children sat on mats or on the dusty ground amid the chickens that had free run of the village. While the important people sat “enthroned,” the clear leaders of the celebration were the women. They had come dressed in their best clothes, shiny and clean. They raised their voices in song, loud and bright. With call and response, joyful ululation, and bodies movin...
• God in Particular by Kyle Childress (12/23/2009)
    Luke 2: 1-20 My college church organized a big evangelistic training and event. We went through two nights learning how to “win people to the Lord” using handy little tracts organized around “the four spiritual laws.” (#1 God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. #2 Man is sinful and separated from God. [Yes, only men.] #3 Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. #4 We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. – I still remember them after all these years.) Each spiritual law had a verse of Scripture attached to it to give it biblical validity. On the third night we were given the assignment of going out to neighborhoods and college dorms, knocking on doors, and if the person answer...
• The Whole Package by Debra Dean Murphy (12/31/2009)
  Second Sunday After Christmas Ephesians 1:3-19; John 1:1-18 It’s still Christmas. It’s hard to tell that from the culture around us, and maybe even a little hard to tell from this Sunday’s appointed lessons. For a few days we were immersed in the earthiness of the Nativity (barn animals, labor and delivery, a feeding trough for a bed). But this week’s readings have phrases like “before the foundation of the world,” “the mystery of his will,” and “in the beginning was the Word.” It’s tempting, perhaps, to see a sharp division here. To imagine that the Christmas lections are about the simple, familiar, child-friendly stuff—cradles and crèches...