Posts from 2013

Darkness and Light, and My Son’s Need to Know Where the Bad People Go by John Jay Alvaro (1/2/2013)
...us on all sides. And these important pastors have been given access to thousands upon thousands of itching ears each week. They are the arbiters of right and wrong, light and dark, heaven and hell. So when something like a massive school shooting happens, they are armed to the teeth with explanations and remedies. It should have come as no surprise that the Newtown shooting would elicit such ...
Year C collected by Ekklesia Project (1/9/2013)
...one document, it's now available as a pdf. The authors for the year C bLOGOS reflections are: Ragan Sutterfield, Brian Volck, Jenny Williams, Doug Lee, Kyle Childress, Debra Dean Murphy, Halden Doerge, Janice Love, Mark Ryan, Doug Lee, Jake Wilson, Tobias Winright, and The Ekklesia Project. Copyright © 2013 Ekklesia Project. All rights reserved. <a href="http://dev-ekklesiaproject-org:8080/...
Risky Waters by Heather Carlson (1/10/2013)
...f history about how we have fought and killed one another over the rite. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. (NIV) It strikes me that Jesus isn't alone. There are others there being baptized, and there is someone there to baptize Jesus. If anyone was qualified to baptize themselves and leave the whole messy religious system behind, it was Jesus. But that...
Blessing and the Christian Life by Danny Yencich (1/16/2013)
...est chapters of Genesis as Abram is blessed to be the father of a nation which will in turn be a blessing unto the world. The pattern is then displayed throughout the rest of the Scriptures, as God’s people are blessed to be a blessing. The emphasis changes from time to time, as God’s people struggle to find their way: at times, blessing is poured out upon them, while at others, God’s people serve...
A Nose Hair in the Body of Christ by Brian Volck (1/21/2013)
...ing: working to stop the death penalty, saving starving children, reading the best books, having informed opinions.” Sandie paused a moment to ponder Jill’s concerns, and said, “All those things are important, but we’re all part of the body of Christ, and we have a role, however small. So what if you’re the nose hair? You’re there for a purpose. You may not have any idea what good you’re doing...
Rejoice in the Truth by Janice Love (1/31/2013)
... Isaiah in his home congregation to announce the arrival of God’s jubilee and of God’s Messiah. All eyes are on him now as he launches into his ministry. We have this Sunday only to contemplate what Jesus is up to in this part of his ministry before we leap ahead five chapters and a few years to the Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday and the preparation of Lent for the Paschal and Resurrection. This y...
Uncover Your Face by Ragan Sutterfield (2/7/2013)
...eil” was inspired by one of Moody’s ancestors, a guilt ridden puritan minister. To understand the power of the black veil Moody wears one, and then riffs for pages on the power of the veil and its color.  He closes the book: Red, white, and blue is just marketing rhetoric, therefore, the sloganeering to which we aspire in order not to terrify foreign nationals; the r...
Saying "Yes" and Saying "No" by Kyle Childress (2/13/2013)
... Bible, and loving God’s people. After the service, of course, we all joined in a country church dinner on the grounds of which legends are made. Soon thereafter, I escorted the old preacher to his car. He laid his Bible on the roof of the car as he opened the door and turned to me, “There are two more things you need to know about being a pastor. You’ll need to learn to say ‘No!’ and ‘Hell no!’” ...
A Healing Word by Debra Dean Murphy (2/20/2013)
...my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1 The gospel reading for the Second Sunday in Lent differs significantly for Protestants and Catholics. The Revised Common Lectionary appoints four pithy verses from Luke 13 which reveal a rather astonishing range of reactions in Jesus as he reckons with both his imperial pursuers and his faithless kinsmen. To...
Scapegoats and Torturers by Ekklesia Project (2/25/2013)
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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. ...
Difficult Freedom by Mark Ryan (3/6/2013)
...xodus from Egypt and the Israelites’ wandering in the desert. Prior to the gospel reading, we sing “forty days and forty nights/thou was fasting in the wild/forty days and forty nights/tempted, and yet undefiled….” If the dramatic event of liberation from the tyrannical Pharaoh speaks to us clearly of what we are freed from, the desert experience is key to learning what we are freed for.<!--more--...
"The regime...was just demolished...by...tears." by John Jay Alvaro (3/15/2013)
...ies, not for people who are trying to keep it all together. Yet this week's psalm is all weepy and emotional. The psalmist apparently has no regard for good manners or propriety. Psalm 126 reads like the interior of a manic person. Laughing, shouting, crying, shouting, weeping, shouts of joy. None of it is ignored, all of the emotions are part of the song, all honored. The psalm cares not...
Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! by Heather Carlson (3/21/2013)
...ght in the darkness! The crowds that gathered some 2000 years ago are also relieved; it's not simply six weeks from which they seek reprieve, but a lifetime (and an ancestry) of heaviness, oppression and fragility. At last Jesus will take hold of Jerusalem! Maybe even a wisp of smugness laces the festivities; finally the powers that reign are going to be put in their place. “That will show thos...
Rejoice! Our Work Has Just Begun! by Brian Volck (3/27/2013)
...el Motes in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, most of us shout to the world through our attitudes and actions – if not necessarily with words – that, “I'm a member and preacher to that church where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way.” Jesus, who some hoped to be Israel’s hope, lay dead, having been executed as a political criminal. Faith...
Do You Love Me? by Janice Love (4/11/2013)
...r continued bafflement speaks volumes to the shock of what has taken place. Thousands of years later the ripples of that decisive Act of God can continue to confound us; the church is still in need of this gift of time to yearly reorient ourselves to what God is up to. Unexpected, startling, the Resurrection of Jesus has left the disciples at loose ends, unsure of what the implications are and ...
Believing and Proclaiming by Mark Ryan (4/16/2013)
...ernoon was somewhat of an exception. When my dear mother in law instructed me in a whisper to ‘turn on the TV’—she was on the phone at the time—I felt a sense of foreboding. As I pondered the clicker, I felt caught between my habit of flatly refusing such invitations to be informed—a habit rooted in a general distrust that what the TV anchors would express as urgent truly was—and a nagging sense t...
Loving Those People by Ragan Sutterfield (4/25/2013)
... is bound to be the common sport. The Baptist are the dominant denomination in the region, often conservative brands. Many in the Episcopal Church grew up in Baptist churches or similar denominations and they consider their new status as Episcopalians to be an enlightened escape. So they take cheap shots, ridicule the Baptists and feel self-satisfied. The flipside occurs of co...
Our Place Redeemed by Kyle Childress (4/29/2013)
...times in fifteen years. He said he owned nothing that would not fit easily into his car. When talking about this with some friends, all of whom were in their twenties and thirties, all smart, well-educated and upwardly mobile, they compared notes and realized that between them they had lived in every state and dozens of foreign countries. Not one person lived near where they were born and raised ...
In Memoriam - Brian Logan by Brent Laytham (5/2/2013)
...n died Monday, April, 29, 2013 at his home in Eugene, Oregon. He was 52. Brian was raised in San Diego, CA graduating from Mission Bay High School in 1979. He attended Preston Road School of Preaching, Abilene Christian University, and Northwest Christian College. Brian married Suzie Cox January 29, 1994 in San Francisco, CA, and moved to Eugene, OR where Brian served as a pastor for Church of ...
Ascension and Embrace by Debra Dean Murphy (5/9/2013)
...He first enters the way. John Donne, <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22937" target="_blank">Ascension</a> I was puzzling over what to write here when across my Facebook newsfeed came the <a href="http://nhregister.com/articles/2013/05/06...
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...
Overcoming Epistemology by Mark Ryan (5/23/2013)
...e, perhaps especially to the monotheistic believer, and it is therefore rightly called a “mystery.” However, attending to Trinitarian orthodoxy and its implication of us and God can bring spiritual renewal, when we first make ourselves aware of certain habits of thought we moderns possess that render the Trinity a moral and intellectual “problem.” Challenges to Trinitarian orthodoxy ...
The Hope of Widows by Danny Yencich (6/8/2013)
... and marred by suffering and sadness. But, like seedlings which break through concrete, the power of resurrection—of life itself—breaks forth and beats the odds. These are stories of hope amidst hardship, light in the deepest shadows; they bear witness to the power of God which, in the end, holds sway even over Death itself. Recently a mentor of mine put it something like this: the ...
More Than a Prophet by Heather Carlson (6/12/2013)
...book, twitter and local gossip heats up. Will the beloved mayor be there? How about the multimillionaire industry leaders? Are there national and international celebrities coming to town? It makes me wonder what kind of buzz Simon's dinner party was generating. Luke tells us Jesus was garnering attention across the countryside after he raised a widow's son from death to life. Now Jesus the heal...
Declare How Much God has Done for You by Janice Love (6/20/2013)
...g visit to my sister’s on the Saskatchewan prairies holds the promise of a visit to their cabin with boating, tubing, skiing and skipping stones on the to do list – unlike our last visit when our son learned to sandbag for the first time as his uncle and cousins sought to keep the lake water from drowning the cabin. This last image of flooding and water out of control, unfortunately a prominent...
Stay Close by Ragan Sutterfield (6/26/2013)
...; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." "Stay close" disrupts our stable world of fixed religion, it requires us to stick less to this or that place whether it is a physical place or a place of practice or ideas. "Stay close" could mean sticking to here, whether it is a corrupt institution or a difficult neighborhood or with people who just don't get us. "Stay close" could mean getti...
A Different Sort of History by Brian Volck (7/2/2013)
...m>“Well, boy, if he’s an angel, he’s sure a murderin’ angel.” -The Killer Angels It’s a week of significant anniversaries in North America. July 1 is the 146th year since the passage of the British North America Act, creating the Dominion of Canada, July 1-3 is the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg, the so-called turning point in the American Civil War, and July 4t...
Tensions in the Law by Mark Ryan (7/9/2013)
...ite’s will soon inhabit. In Luke, Jesus discusses Torah and its interpretation with a young lawyer as he journeys to Jerusalem, a journey that requires many Israelites to pass through the land of the Samaritans, a people in dubious relation to the law. In Psalm 82, God is the great judge holding council with the gods of the nations. As a member of a late modern society, I sense in myself a cert...
Listening to the Word by Kyle Childress (7/16/2013)
...icking up the newspapers that have piled up, and on and on. Meanwhile, sister Mary sits in front of Jesus listening to what he has to say. Martha, understandably frustrated says, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister just sits there while I do all the work? Tell her to get up and help!” Jesus replies, “Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things: there is need of only one thing. Mary has ...
Treading Silently Near Tender Hearts by John Jay Alvaro (7/25/2013)
...ng. Either I was supposed to feel like a well-loved slut or this book smelled like kitsch religious patriarchy repackaged in 1850's stereotypes. It has been so many years that I almost forgot the book existed, until I came across the readings for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost (Year C). There we find Hosea's prologue staring at us, waiting for a response. I went back and revisited the amazon....
The Happiness Market by Debra Dean Murphy (7/30/2013)
...ana! Why did they spread this scandalous document before our eyes? If they had read it, I thought, they would have hid it. They did not recognize the lively danger that we would, through repeated exposure, catch a dose of its virulent opposition to their world. Instead they bade us study great chunks of it, and think about those chunks, and commit them to memory, and ignore them. By dipping us chi...
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...
The Church in the Wild by Ragan Sutterfield (8/15/2013)
...and successional trees, and cats would take over (dogs it turns out have tied their fate to ours). I like to entertain such ideas--of a city overgrown with weeds, of the industrial countryside reforested--not because I am a misanthrope but because I like the idea of a reset. The way we’re living on this earth isn’t sustainable, much less flourishing and it would be good to start...
Deep and Wide by Brian Volck (8/20/2013)
...eek for ecumenical commentary on the lectionaries, a rare Ordinary Time Sunday when none of the Revised Common Lectionary and Catholic Lectionary passages match. Books and even chapters nearly align, but as the carnival barker says after the darts are tossed, “Close, son, but no cigar.” But this is the hand we’re dealt this week. I’m suspicious of harmonizing texts. From Tatian’s <a href="...
Praying for the Nation’s Peace and Justice by Mark Ryan (8/29/2013)
...ollowed by a short period of silence, and then: “Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.”)</blockquote> How does praying as the church, the holy people of God, united as one, inform our ability to pray for justice and peace in the nation? The passage from Jeremiah in this week’s lectionary addresses not only where Israel seeks security, but its very identity as God’s ...
To Rest in Requiring Hands by Shannon Schaefer (9/4/2013)
... that in my life. The first day at the wheel, I held my newly kneaded lump of clay, eager for peaceful art-making, when my friend instructed me to raise up my clay in both hands and slam it down on the wheel. “Slam?” I asked, perplexed. “Slam,” she answered. It took a few tries and her vigorous convincing that I should put some power into it, but eventually my clay was forcef...
Amazing Grace by Kyle Childress (9/10/2013)
...e knew what the dying priest knew in Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest, “It’s all grace.” The very meaning of the word “grace” is “undeserved favor.” We do not deserve it. If it is deserved, then it is not grace and it is certainly not amazing. Which is why Archie’s favorite hymn was “Amazing Grace.” As he said, “it is the one hymn most about me, especially the part about saving w...
What Else is Money For? by Erin Dufault-Hunter (9/20/2013)
... at their apartment at any time to preserve “order.” In defiance of political authorities, believers surreptitiously sought to get around the law; they were determined to meet together for fellowship, prayer, and worship. Unfortunately, the local policeman saw the staggered comings and goings and figured out that they were gathering. At that point, my friend did what was socially expected in s...
The Hell of Loneliness by Debra Dean Murphy (9/26/2013)
...m that money presents for kingdom living, Luke begins this week’s story as he did last week’s: “There was a rich man.” The tradition has named him “Dives” (Latin for “rich man,” first used by St. Jerome in the fourth century) and his life is one of prodigal extravagance and a callous disregard for his poor neighbor, Lazarus. The suffering Lazarus, who knew no peace in his earthly existence, rests,...
How Do You Sing the Lord's Song? by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (10/1/2013)
...read that last line in Psalm 137. Read it again. You got it - they want somebody to enjoy bashing baby heads into rocks). Her streets empty of God’s people, Jerusalem also suffers, mourning and shedding tears (Lamentations). Separated from each other, holy people and place are incapable of singing the Lord’s Song. Yet, World Communion Sunday sounds so nice. I have thoughts of happy people at ch...
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. ...
Recreating Eaarth by Ragan Sutterfield (10/16/2013)
......was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone.” Christ, being God’s Word present and active in creation from the beginning, had to come in human form so that he could re-create the world and show humankind how to be human in the face of the “dehumanizing of mankind.” I thought of Athanasius, of the mixing of creation and salvation, when I read Jeremiah 31:27-34 in our lectionary for...
Why I Need the Terrible Judgment of God by Erin Dufault-Hunter (10/25/2013)
...I couldn’t see how I had done anything worthy of this person’s mean and petty actions. A mutual friend was offering to mediate between us. In our phone conversation, she noted how the other party felt hurt, needed to be cared for, experienced abandonment, etc. The friend insisted that this other person had gifts to offer and had to be set free to do so. Internally, I balked. You gotta be kidding m...
To Feel as Christians by Mark Ryan (10/30/2013)
...alone, to rejoice in you, from you, through you.” (Augustine, Confessions) The Christian life goes hand and hand with a peculiar palette of emotions. At times I’ve reflected that to be welcomed into Christian community–to realize that these defining convictions have become one’s own—is the prelude to (and condition for) feelings of anger and even a sense of alienation or being a s...
To Sweet Impossible Blossom by Shannon Schaefer (11/7/2013)
...he still answers the question. They’ve come up with the perfect quandary for Jesus. A woman marries seven brothers, gives not one of them a child to carry his name and tether her to him. In the resurrection, whose will she be? It occurs to me that because of their denial of the resurrection they’re asking about, they mean their question to be purely a matter of theory. It does seem a little ...
What is the Good News Anyway? by Kyle Childress (11/13/2013)
... is a reminder of the work we pastors do: we’re prophetic – always proclaiming the vision and vocation of God’s reign; we’re pastoral – always helping a congregation be patient with one another as we fail to live up to the vision and vocation. The tension is always there and we’re caught right in the middle of it. It’s not easy living in that tension. The constant temptation is to ease up one w...
King/Fool by John Jay Alvaro (11/21/2013)
...sus? This Sunday we recognize Christ as king. It is the end of the church year, bringing our story from Advent through Easter and all that ordinary time to a close. But there is nothing about the image of Christ as king that settles my stomach or makes sense of my expectations. Nothing about this coronation service feels like closure or victory. If Jesus is a king, then his followers are fo...
End Times by Debra Dean Murphy (11/26/2013)
...e end, when told, is a story that never ends. From Mark Strand’s <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/19/stra.html" target="_blank">“The Seven Last Words”</a> Christianity makes the brazen claim that Jesus of Nazareth is the end of history, and the double-entendre is deliberate. On the one hand, the consummation that Christ’s resurrection mak...
Again! by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (12/4/2013)
... Or watched a favorite TV episode or movie on loop? There’s good reason – repetition helps kids learn and facilitates brain development. Repetition and routine also provide comfort and stability, bonding children with parents, teachers and other adults who love and care for them. 2. After spending time with the epistle lesson, I’ve also come to see repetition as a means of...
What Are You Waiting For? by Ragan Sutterfield (12/11/2013)
...h John in prison, a place made for the worst kind of waiting. He wants to know from Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” This is critical for John because he is about to die and he knows it. Should he die still praying for the Kingdom for which he has been preparing? Or can he uncork the bootlegged Champaign in celebration of its arrival? From ou...
A Very Messy Christmas by Brian Volck (12/18/2013)
...he knows what information a calculating ruler wants to hear, announces that a girl with soon give birth. Paul writes as a self-described slave to Christians in the imperial capital where he will eventually be executed. Yet, compelled by Christ, he greets his readers with words of grace and peace. Joseph learns that his fiancée is pregnant with someone else’s child, and looks for a way out. ...