Posts from 2014

• Body Matters by Shannon Schaefer (1/1/2014)
  Second Sunday of Christmas Solemnity of the Epiphany Jeremiah 31:7-14 Psalm 147:12-20 Ephesians 1:3-14 John 1:1-18 “The Word became flesh and lived among us…” The deepest of human hopes has taken body, form: there is skin on God. Soft tissues wrap bone, the divine bound willingly in the swaddling clothes of human substance, fibered all through with yearning and will. The creator inhabits created form. There is no room for metaphor here; flesh on God is no parable, no allegory. Make no mistake: this is body, like yours, like m...
• The Rupture of Impossibility by Jim McCoy (1/9/2014)
  The Baptism of the Lord Acts 10:34-48 Freeze the frame, theologian James Alison instructs, on the moment in Acts 10 when the Holy Spirit falls on the surprised gentiles and on the even more astounded circumcised believers. What looks to be a scene from a pentecostal or charismatic rally is, on closer inspection, a “cultural earthquake of immeasurably greater proportions” (Quotes and wording are taken from Alison’s On Being Liked, esp. pp. vii – xvii, and Faith Beyond Resentment). 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 i...
• Seek and you shall... by John Jay Alvaro (1/15/2014)
  Second Sunday after the Epiphany Psalm 40:1-11, John 1:29-42 This week we will let Paul David Hewson (aka Bono) be our exegete. Bono, the frontman for the Dublin-based band U2, wrote two songs that intersect with today's lectionary passages. Our texts for this reflection will be Psalm 40 and John 1:29-42, and alongside the Biblical text will be "40 (How Long)" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from U2. --------------------- First Psalm 40. This is one of those lovely/troubling imprecatory psalms. "Imprecatory" means "to curse or pray evil upon another," a definition which makes these passages difficult to preach. ...
• Whose You Are by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (1/21/2014)
  Third Sunday after Epiphany Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Matthew 4:12-23 While in Divinity school, I went on a travel seminar to the Middle East with thirty-nine other seminary students and lay people. During our time in Jerusalem, we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which sits atop the traditional site of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. It is a place of immense consequence for the Christian faith, and it’s unsurprising that representatives from multiple denominations are housed inside the church. The description “sharing space” would be too strongly worded and ultimately inaccurate, for these six denom...
• The Risks of Baby Dedication by Ragan Sutterfield (1/29/2014)
  Luke 2:22-40 Imagine this at your baby’s dedication.  You go up front where the preacher does her blessing; perhaps water is sprinkled or maybe even your baby is baptized in a little font.  Pious prayers are said, God invoked—it’s a routine that happens month by month in the cycle of the church’s life.  Then a man walks in, “led by the Spirit,” and promises that your child is destined “for the rising and falling of many” and that he will be “opposed so vigorously that it will reveal the intentions of many.”  Then this man says that you will find your own soul “pierced by a sword.”  A little blue or pink New Testament would hardly seem an appropriate gift after all of that. Jesus was certainly no ...
• "Luminous Darkness" by Debra Dean Murphy (2/5/2014)
  Epiphany 5A Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Matthew 5:13-16 Who among those who have read the gospels does not know that Christ has made all human suffering his own?

  Origen, “On Prayer”

  On Sunday, when I read that Philip Seymour Hoffman had died, my breath caught a little. I didn’t know him, of course, though I’ve admired every performance of his I’ve seen. (Oh, the power of cinema to make us feel like we know the actors we love—indeed to make us love them in the first place.) Hoffman was an actor of astonishing intuition and virtuosity. As Groaning and Flourishing: Gathered by Our Creator's Care by Ragan Sutterfield (2/5/2014)

  Over Christmas I went bird watching near my parents house in Arkansas. Driving to a Wildlife Management Area I passed Lake Conway where nearly 7,000 barrels of oil spilled from an ExxonMobil tar-sands pipeline. The site in the lake nearest the spill still had containment buoys eight months after the accident. There was a man in a air boat and hazmat suit testing the water with hundreds of ducks and gulls and cormorants were feeding in the water nearby. Since then there have been other spills. Most recently West Virginia's waters were poisoned by the ironically named, "Freedom Industries." The damage done is beyond calculation and it will take years to know the full effects. These examples are just to name some of the ways in which creation is groaning in pain and eager longing for God's Ki...
• Why Grace Doesn't Fit on a Bumpersticker by Erin Dufault-Hunter (2/15/2014)
  Sixth Sunday after Epiphany Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Psalm 119:1-8 Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Matthew 5:21 – 37 “Christians aren’t perfect – just forgiven.” So the bumper sticker proclaims the good news, the gospel in a nutshell to those shackled by guilt over the slightest failure. Or, better yet, consider how this quip responds to those who enjoy reminding rather sorry Christians, such as myself, how we fall short. I can’t count how many times my own hot-headedness and quick tongue get the better of me. How many of you, like me, have been a jerk to another – especially a family member who may not be so “into”...
• Northwest Ekklesia Project Gathering 2014 by Ekklesia Project (2/19/2014)
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• Bonds Unbroken by Brian Volck (2/19/2014)
  Seventh Sunday after Epiphany Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 Matthew 5:38-48 At the start of an interview with America magazine last year, Pope Francis was asked, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” The Pope paused a moment before saying, “I am a sinner,” and then went on to clarify: “…but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” Perhaps you, like me, take heart at these words, which sound like the fruit of hard experien...
• Doing Well to Remember, Remembering to Do Well by Mark Ryan (2/26/2014)
  Eighth Sunday after Epiphany Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 2 OR Psalm 99 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 Traveling south on I 465 around Indianapolis one comes face to face with a ginormous billboard that asks: ‘Who is Jesus?’ For me, the question interrupts a flow of consciousness—call it “utilitarian consciousness”—related to the objects on which my gaze (restlessly) rests—mostly corporate logos for hotel chains, personal injury lawyers, and the occasional public health message “1 ou...
• Asking the Hard Questions by Kyle Childress (3/5/2014)
  First Sunday of Lent Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11 In the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category was the story from a few days ago about the Kentucky Baptist Convention leading what they’re calling “Second Amendment Celebrations” where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ. At one such upcoming event organizers are expecting as many as 1,000 people where they will be given a free steak dinner and the chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns. The goal is to “point people to Christ,” says a church sponsoring the event, and the Kentucky ...
• The Womb of the Church by Shannon Schaefer (3/11/2014)
  Second Sunday of Lent John 3:1-17 (18-21) It is dark, night, perhaps even the evening after Jesus goes on a rampage in the temple, flipping tables, coins flying, would-be sacrifices scattering. The Jews had confronted him, asking for a sign. He’d made quite the scene. Now in the dark, Nicodemus comes to Jesus. A leader of the Jews, an authority in the temple where such a scene was made, he comes to appease, smooth things over a little, perhaps appeal to the madman in hopes of preventing further disruption. It’s Passover, after all, and the temple at that. A repeat of such antics would be deeply shaming. Or perhaps the dark is more than simple night, and Nicodemus wants in, closer to the power he sees in the...
• Break in the Cup by Jim McCoy (3/20/2014)
  Third Sunday in Lent Exodus 17:1-7 Psalm 95 Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42 David Wilcox calls "Break in the Cup" the “anti-love song,” his protest against the romantic mythology that says all we have to do is find that one person who will make us forever happy, and how hard could that possibly be?