Posts from 2015

• Assumed and Healed by Brian Volck (1/7/2015)
  Baptism of the Lord Genesis 1:1-5 OR Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 Acts 19:1-7 OR Acts 10:34-38 Mark 1:4-11 Mark’s characteristically spare account of Jesus’ baptism tells us little about the encounter between Jesus and John. We don’t learn if Jesus joined the riverside queue waiting to be dunked or suddenly presents himself to a wading John, but we get some sense that Jesus’ arrival is both anticipated and in need of explanation. Why does he undergo baptism of repentance? Have we’ve heard the story too often to g...
• In the Dark by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (1/14/2015)
  Second Sunday after Epiphany Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Samuel 3:1-10 Psalm 139 It seems funny in the weeks following the dazzling brightness of Epiphany to reflect on/in darkness, but that’s where I’m headed. In part because it’s heavy in the text, but also because I’m hypersensitive to it. Something of a spiritual/emotional “darkness” has been hanging out with me as of late.* Were it possible, I’d rather slam the door in the face of darkness than spend time with/in it when it knocks. I don’t think I’m alone in that. We as individuals and communities typically want to bring light (flash, night, or flood) and all it represents - understanding, good...
• Only by Ekklesia Project (1/20/2015)
  Third Sunday After Epiphany Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Psalm 62 Mark 1:14-20 By Grace Hackney My husband and I do not normally worship at Duke Chapel, but after the events of the previous week, we felt compelled to go last Sunday. We needed a “word” following the cancellation of the Muslim call to worship scheduled for the previous Friday from the top of the Chapel’s tower. It had been a challenging week, with this news following on the heels of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and resultant reactions. With security guards sprinkled throughout the Chapel, Dean Luke Powery began worship by reading a pastoral letter regarding the recent week’s drama to the cong...
• What is Power For? by Joel Shuman (1/29/2015)
  Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Psalm 111 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Mark 1:21-28 Albeit in different ways, each of this week’s texts (save perhaps the Psalm) has to do with power and its potential or actual social effects. Although I am expert neither in social theory nor its criticism, one thing I do recall from my relatively scant reading in those fields is that power is an ineliminable aspect of all human associations, from the most intimate interpersonal relationships to the most impersonal instit...
• Contemplatives in Action by Stephen Fowl (2/3/2015)
  Fifth Sunday after Epiphany Mark 1:29-39 Scholars often speak of Mark’s gospel as a passion narrative with a long introduction. The readings for this week as well as the past couple of weeks are part of that introduction. Last week’s gospel reading and the first part of this week’s reading cover just one day in the ministry of Jesus. In Mark’s typically laconic style, we learn in short order that Jesus calls two sets of brothers to be his first followers (1:16-20). They enter Capernaum on a Sabbath and “immediately” go to the synagogue. There, Jesus teaches “with authority.” Though we don’t learn what he says, we do learn that he casts out a demon. This activity certainly serves to buttress Jesus’ authorit...
• Transfigured in Him by Shannon Schaefer (2/11/2015)
  Transfiguration Sunday Mark 9:2-9 “And he was transfigured before them.” – Mark 9:2 “I can’t explain the goings or the comings. You enter suddenly and I am nowhere again, inside the majesty.” – Rumi Dazzling white clothes, Moses and Elijah, voices from clouds – I am guilty of having sometimes rushed past the transfiguration accounts for how inaccessible such an experience of Jesus seems to me. Perhaps it’s a story challenging to preach or teach, as it offers no tidy moral imperative, no clear implication for how to live in light of the disciples’ witness. Instead, the transfiguration account is fluent in mystery, begging us to place ourselves in the narrative and walk around inside of it - clim...
• Descent Into Life by Jessie Larkins (2/17/2015)
  First Sunday of Lent Genesis 9:8-17 1 Peter 3:18-22 Mark 1:9-15 Having Descended to the Heart Once you have grown used to the incessant prayer the pulse insists upon, and once that throbbing din grows less diverting if undiminished, you’ll surely want to look around—which is when you’ll likely apprehend that you can’t see a thing. Terror sometimes sports an up side, this time serves as tender, hauling you to port. What’s most apparent in the dark is how the heart’s embrace, if manifestly intermittent, is really quite reliable, and very nearly bides as if another...
• Turning the Soil by Grace G. Hackney (2/24/2015)
  Second Sunday of Lent Mark 8:31-38 ‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis is a gift to be free, ‘tis a gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves In the place just right, ‘twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gain’d to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed. To turn, turn will be our delight Till by turning, turning, we come ‘round right. --Shaker Hymn Knees bent, ashes smudged on foreheads, letting go and taking up – the work of Lent is no less messy yet necessary than the work of a farmer in early spring, muck boots stuck in the mire of a melted grey snow, calloused hands reaching low to pull aside the mulch that blankete...
• Words by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (3/4/2015)
  Third Sunday in Lent Exodus 20:1-17 Psalm 19 John 2:13-22 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 I have an almost two year-old friend, Azalea, who is stringing sentences together into increasingly complex stories. A most recent tale that Azalea tells involves Muppet, her cat, sitting in Azalea’s yogurt. Said story is followed by a big little-girl grin, not only because she gets tickled recounting it, but also because she has learned that she can evoke a similar response in other people. She looks for her audience to understand and react to what she says, and she delights in it...
• Loving the World by Kyle Childress (3/11/2015)
  Fourth Sunday of Lent John 3:14-21 Likely the most well known verse in the entire Bible is John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever should believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life (which is the way I memorized it in the King James version). In the Texas Baptist life in which I grew up this was the essence of the gospel or as old Luther said a few centuries earlier, it’s the gospel in miniature. Along with the entire story of Nicodemus secretly coming to Jesus during the night and being told earlier in the conversation that he must be born again, this was our canon within the canon and it interpreted everything else. To this day in most Baptist...
• It Can't Come Soon Enough by Joel Shuman (3/18/2015)
  Fifth Sunday in Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 51:1-12 Hebrews 5:5-10 John 12:20-33 In the undergraduate Christian Ethics course I teach just about every semester, we are talking this week about a notion many of my students seem to regard as quaint, if not downright archaic, namely sin. Among the more important points I have tried to highlight is one well-worn in many strands of Christian tradition; sin is self-destructive, in that it separates us from our true ultimate end and therefore from the possibility of genuine flourishing as women and men made in the im...
• Becoming Human by Brian Volck (3/25/2015)
  Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Mark 11:1-10 Isaiah 50:4-7 Philippians 2:6-11 Mark 14:1-15:47 “So far as being human goes, the only difference between Jesus and me is that he lived out his humanity more consistently than I do.” – Herbert McCabe Those who dismiss Christianity as a comforting myth are inattentive readers of Scripture. They can’t, for instance, have read Mark’s gospel in anything but a superficial or tendentious way. Mark’s Jesus dies horribly, nailed to an imperial torture device, abandoned by his male disciples (though not by some o...
• Death Defeated by Stephen Fowl (4/1/2015)
  Easter Sunday Isaiah 25:6-9 Acts 10:34-43 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 John 20:1-18 OR Mark 16:1-8 This Easter will be the first since my mother died in July. She died so unexpectedly and quickly that I could not be with her when it happened. Still, mom was a believer and hers was a fast, peaceful death. As these things go, we would call it a good death. Nevertheless, as I found out at Christmas, and I expect I will find out at Easter, her death has upset me more than I first knew. Without question, there are v...
• Easter People by Jessie Larkins (4/7/2015)
  Second Sunday of Easter Acts 4:32-35 Psalm 133 1 John 1:1-2:2 John 20:19-31 “Easter people, raise your voices, sounds of heaven in earth should ring. Christ has brought us heaven’s choices; heavenly music, let it ring. Alleluia! Alleluia! Easter people, let us sing.” - William James, Easter People, Raise Your Voices, UMH #304 “What is a ‘Easter people’?” That was the question that a 4-year old child in my congregation asked me on the way out the door on Easter Sunday just a few days ago. We had just sung one of my favorite Ea...
• Creatures Who Eat by Grace G. Hackney (4/15/2015)
  Third Sunday of Easter Luke 24:35-48 “When the risen Christ eats with the disciples it is not just a way of proving that he is ‘really’ there, it is a way of saying that what Jesus did in creating a new community during his earthly life, he is doing now in his risen life.” (Rowan Williams, Being Christian, pg. 45.) Reading this passage from the former Archbishop’s pen made me want to say “Amen, and.” And, what Jesus has done and is doing and will do began when the world was created. God created us as creatures who eat. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how Christians eat. After twelve years in local rural churches (and more potlucks and Harvest Festivals...
• No Weapon But Grace by Brian Volck (4/20/2015)
  Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 4:5-12 1 John 3:16-24 John 10:11-18 One morning, when my daughter was about four years old and deep in another “Daddy is Doo-Doo” phase during which my wife’s presence was infinitely preferable to mine, she called for her mother from the comfort of her own bed. My wife was in the shower and unable to answer, and the tone of my daughter’s voice quickly escalated from polite request to imperious demand. Even today, when I think of my now nineteen year-old daughter, I hear Helena, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, saying, “though she be but little, she is fierce.” I stepped to...
• Abiding Fruit by Jim McCoy (4/29/2015)
  Fifth Sunday of Easter John 15:1-8 While admiring a tree in full bloom, Joseph Parker, a Congregational minister in Victorian England, noticed that under the wide-spreading branches there was a huge limb of the tree withering away. He realized that “the same sun that created the blossom was causing the tree branch to wither.”

  To the living tree whose roots were struck into the earth the sun was giving life, but to the branch cut away, having nothing but itself to live upon, the sun was pouring 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.

• What Is Love? by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (5/6/2015)
  Sixth Sunday of Easter John 15:9-17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another (15:17) Love, love, love. All you need is love. Warm fuzzies! What is this longing in our hearts for togetherness? Is it not the sweetest flower? Love! This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (15:12) Um. As I have loved you? No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (15:13). Ohhhhhhhh.That. John reminds us that the kind of love Christians are called to embody takes a particular, cruciform shape. Robin Maas offers insight, “Few, if any of us, will be called to martyrdom; but all of us are ca...
• Two Christianities by Kyle Childress (5/13/2015)
  Seventh Sunday of Easter John 17:6-19 During a haircut my barber asked me, “Do you believe that zombies are real?” I said, “What?” not sure if I had heard her correctly. She asked again, “Do you believe that zombies are real?” Realizing that it was a serious question, I said, “No. Zombies are in movies, books, TV shows, and games. But they’re not real.” She said, “My preacher says that zombies are real. He preaches that the Devil reinvigorates dead bodies and that’s where zombies come from.” Trying to avoid public criticism of another preacher I said, “Where in the Bible does he get this?” She shot back, “Well, I don’t know where he gets it. All I know is that he says we’d better ...
• The Advocacy of the Spirit by Stephen Fowl (5/19/2015)
  Pentecost Sunday Acts 2:1-21 Romans 8:22-27 John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 Although this piece is about Pentecost, I am writing it on the Feast of the Ascension. This fact along with the Pentecost reading from Acts 2 brings Elijah to mind. Like Jesus, Elijah ascends into heaven. Unlike Jesus, he does not conquer death prior to his ascension. Like the followers of Jesus, Elijah has powerful experience of the Lord’s presence. In 1Kings 19 Elijah has just accomplished the most powerful act of his prophetic ministry. On behalf of the one true God, Elijah has challenged the prophets of Baal, who enjoyed the favor of the ...
• The Economy of God's Redemption by Joel Shuman (5/27/2015)
  Trinity Sunday Isaiah 6:1-8 Psalm 29 Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17 When I teach Christian Ethics, I try to compensate for my students’ general lack of theological literacy by taking them on a whirlwind tour of the biblical narrative. The main thing the Bible has to teach us, I often tell them, is who God is and what God is up to, with the latter showing us a lot about the former. What God is up to, I suggest, is some variation of the same thing he’s been up to since he approached Abram somewhere around 4,000 years ago: a work of healing, cosmic in ...
• Rejecting the God Who Is by Jessie Larkins (6/3/2015)
  Second Sunday after Pentecost 1 Samuel 8:4-20 Mark 3:20-35 Even those sympathetic to the cause of the young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were a bit shocked by the brazenness of the young organizer. President Johnson, the same president who would later sign the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts into law, asked King to tone down the spectacle a bit—there were, after all, elections to be won and constituencies to satisfy. As the Civil Rights movement began to gain strength through the tactics of non-violent resistance, the establishment grew increasingly uncomfortable. White pastors across the South, in an attempt to keep the peace, appealed to King to be p...
• Large Things in Small Parishes by Kyle Childress (6/10/2015)
  Third Sunday after Pentecost Mark 4:26-34 The Texas historian of a generation ago, Walter Prescott Webb, has a wonderful paragraph in his classic book, The Great Plains. He contrasts the West with the East in the raising of cattle and notices that even though the West raised fewer cattle than the farms of the East, it was the West that defines for us what cattle raising is all about. Webb writes, “A thousand farms in the East will each have six or seven cows, with as many more calves and yearlings – ten thousand head. But they will attract no attention ... In the West a ranch will cover perhaps the same area as the thousand farms, and will have perhaps ten thousand head, roundups, rodeos, men on horseba...
• Storm of the Spirit by Shannon Schaefer (6/17/2015)
  Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time Psalm 107 Mark 4:35-41 Mid-May of this year, the Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life released findings from a recent survey that indicates a decline in the number of Americans claiming Christian affiliation, especially among Mainline Protestants and Catholics. When the report was first released, reactions among those I know varied widely, from alarm, to those who met the findings with resignation and acceptance, or frankly as old news. As a divinity school student, preparing for perhaps a lifeti...
• Classic posts by Ekklesia Project (6/23/2015)
  For this week's lectionary, we have two great posts from previous trips through the cycle: Debra Dean Murphy's  "The Hemorrhaging Woman"  from 2009 and Brian Volck's  The Encounter More Than the Cure from 2012....
• The World We've Made by Brian Volck (7/1/2015)
  Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Ezekiel 2:1-5 Psalm 123 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Mark 6:1-13 “Hontar: We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus. Altamirano: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world... thus have I made it.” -Robert Bolt, The Mission “The past is never dead. It's not even past." -William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun Whatever your opinion of Barack Obama, you can’t deny the last full week of June was kind to him, climaxing on Friday as he c...
• Dancing Lessons by Grace G. Hackney (7/8/2015)
  Seventh Sunday after Pentecost 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Psalm 24 Ephesians 1:3-14 Mark 6:14-29 As I write, Daniels and Danielles, along with their sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, grandparents and great-grands in the faith are on their way to Babylon – oh, I mean Chicago. A great family reunion will take place, new friends will be made, and those unable to be physically present will be there through the power of the Spirit and the airwaves of technology. We pray that into the ...
• The LORD Will Make You (into) a House by Joel Shuman (7/15/2015)
  Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2 Samuel 7:1-14 Psalm 89:20-37 Ephesians 2:11-22 Mark 6:30-34, 50-56 This week’s First Testament text is a familiar one from 2 Samuel. David, having consolidated his reign and established momentary peace in Israel, wonders aloud to the prophet Nathan whether it is fitting for him to live comfortably in a well-built house while the Ark of the Covenant, the most conspicuous and immediate symbol of God’s presence with Israel, remains in a tent. The subtext here is pretty obvious; David has in mind the construction of a temple t...
• Dream or Deliverance? by Jessie Larkins (7/21/2015)
  Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Samuel 11:1-15 Psalm 14 Ephesians 3:14-21 John 6:1-21 I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of the American Dream. It’s the illusion of a utopian consumerist life that can be achieved when one has a big house in the safety of the suburbs, an SUV or two, money for a Disney vacation, fashionable clothes, a beautiful family (with approximately 2.5 kids and a dog) who attend all the best schools. I was recently informed that in 2015, In the Shadow of Charleston by Ekklesia Project (7/23/2015)

  Syndicate Theology’s current symposium, “In the Shadow of Charleston: Politics, Religion, and White Supremacy,” asks difficult and urgent questions of the church, questions faithful Christians in the United States ignore at great peril. ...
• The Authority of Prisoners by Stephen Fowl (7/29/2015)
  Tenth Sunday after Pentecost 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a Psalm 51 Ephesians 4:1-16 John 6:24-35 In Ephesians 4 Paul begins a sustained account of the shape, nature and practices of life in Christ. He calls on the Ephesians to embody a vibrant unity based on their common faith and baptism. He uses the metaphor of “walking” to describe how believers are to embody a common life in Christ. One of the most striking things about the epistle reading for today is that it begins with a personal plea from one who is a “prisoner in the Lord.” In the NRSV Paul is said to “b...
• Truth Telling and Race in the “United” States by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (8/5/2015)
  Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Ephesians 4:25-5:2 Ephesians is written to the ekklesia, the gathering, a “new humanity” in which dividing walls are broken down through Christ’s submission-to/assumption-of the state’s bone-breaking violence in his own body. This passage advocates truth-telling for the upbuilding of Christian community so that we are transformed by and participate in God’s character revealed in Christ: self-sacrificing love for the sake of others. I offer a truth that is not new or of my own thought, but I believe it will continue to be a (perhaps, the) primary challenge for the church as it fleshes out this calling in this country at this time. The...
• Wasting Time in the Banquet Hall by Jana Bennett (8/12/2015)
  Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 OR Proverbs 9:1-6 Ephesians 5:15-20 John 6:51-58 My children have a beloved book called Clown of God by Tomie de Paolo. I will not give much detail here so that if you haven't yet read this book, you can enjoy the book's surprises. Yet I don't think I give away too much of the story to say that in this beautifully illustrated book set in medieval Italy, readers discover that yes, someone as silly-looking as a clown - even someone who "only" juggles for a livin...
• Who Is This? by Shannon Schaefer (8/19/2015)
  Thirteenth Sunday afar Pentecost Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time John 6:56-69 It is at the eucharistic table and in our liturgies that we likely most often encounter Jesus’s words in the gospel of John, that his flesh is true food, his blood true drink, and that when we eat and drink, we abide in him and he in us. Perhaps we couldn’t be blamed then if such claims of Jesus slide down into the belly of our hearts with ease, like comfort food, filled with familiarity and fond association. For those who have lived this story long, we hear bread and think body, body and think bread – a mingling of symbols and referents that comes as a hard-won accomplishment of good formation. Add to our formations the di...
• Inside and Out by Kyle Childress (8/25/2015)
  Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 I was leaving a meeting with several clergy members. Just behind me, close enough that I could overhear their conversation, was the long-time pastor of the leading Baptist church in town and walking alongside him was the moderator of our local ministerial alliance, who happened to be the pastor of the local Unity congregation, fifteen members strong. My own experience with ministerial alliances, especially in other cities, was that they were ecumenical, even interfaith, so I never thought twice about whether our moderator was Unity or Baptist or Muslim. Apparently, not everyone agreed. Since the Unity minister’s el...
• Stranded on Olympus by Jim McCoy (9/4/2015)
  Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Mark 7:24-37 James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17  

  The appropriate response to the depiction of Christ’s suffering and broken flesh is not empathy leading to philanthropic action or political activism on behalf of the less fortunate other.  Rather, it is meant to provoke repentance and conversion.                                                                

                                               Luke B...
• Revolutionary Danger by Timothy W. Ross (9/9/2015)
  Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Proverbs 1:20-33 James 3:1-12 Mark 8:27-38 “Why doesn’t God answer my prayer? Why is my life so hard? When will things get better for me?” This week we are confronted with the difficult possibility that God’s primary reason for existence may not be to meet our every need, to make us happy, or give us what we want. The disciples began to learn that lesson at Caesarea Phillipi. Caesarea Philippi is a site of incomparable beauty and longstanding political turmoil. Known today as Banias, or Panias, this once Syrian, now I...
• Tough Guy by Todd Edmondson (9/15/2015)
  Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Proverbs 31:10-31 OR Wisdom 2:12-22 Psalm 1 James 3:16-4:3 Mark 9:30-37 Over the recent Labor Day weekend, one of the movie channels was showing a Rocky marathon, so I took the opportunity to introduce my kids to a movie that, in my mind, once represented the apex of filmmaking—Rocky III. While it’s always fun to revisit a cultural experience from my childhood, in this case we found ourselves laughing at all the wrong moments. ...
• How Much is Enough? by Kyle Childress (9/24/2015)
  The post for this week is from the archives: Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Numbers 11: 4-35 Mark 9:38-50 Years ago in a cartoon in the Houston Chronicle, in the first frame was a man, obviously an American middle-class male, standing next to his car, saying to it, “Because of you, the air is foul. The globe is warming.” In the next frame, the man is pumping gas into the car saying, “Because of you I’m entangled in the affairs of countries that cause me headaches.” Next frame, while he is slumped in his seat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, “Because of you our central cities are emp...
• Where Mercy and Justice Meet by Brian Volck (9/30/2015)
  Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Genesis 2:18-24 OR Job 1:1, 2:1-10 Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 Mark 10:2-16 The readings this Sunday are thickly planted with pastoral land mines. Even the revised common lectionary, which typically supplies a kinder, gentler Old Testament alternative to the Catholic selection, offers a passage from Job with a theologically problematic encounter between God and Satan and an unkind reference to women. You decide if that’s safer to preach on than God’s fashioning the woman from the man’s rib. Ha...
• Nightmares of the Rich by Timothy W. Ross (10/6/2015)
  Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Mark 10: 17-31 Stacey Elizabeth Simpson remembers the night she first read Mark’s account of Jesus and the rich man. She was seven, tucked comfortably into bed, quietly reading her Bible when she heard Jesus thunder: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” She slammed the bible shut and ran down the hallway to her sleeping mother’s bedside. “Mom!” she called, “Jesus says that rich people don’t go to heaven!” “We’re not rich,” said her mother, “Go back to bed.” “But I knew better,” said the grown-up Stacey. “I knew I had all I needed plus plenty more…the littl...
• Helpless Before the Throne by Jessie Larkins (10/14/2015)
  Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost Job 38: 1-7 (34-41) Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45 “We will have so much winning. We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with the winning. Believe me, I agree, you'll never get bored with winning. We never get bored. We are going to turn this country around. We are going to start winning big on trade. Militarily, we're going to build up our military. We're going to have such a strong military that nobody, nobody is going to mess with us. We're not going to have to use it." -Donald Trump, September 2015 "I am no longer my own, but thi...
• Keep Reading by Joel Shuman (10/20/2015)
  Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Job 42:1-6, 10-17 OR Jeremiah 31:7-9 Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22 OR Psalm 126 Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 10:46-52 Maybe the most important counsel a commentator on this week’s lectionary texts can offer to whoever hopes to preach them is to keep reading (I’m sure there’s a proverb about this somewhere, but darned if I can come up with one). The lectionary I consulted began with the text from ...
• Feasting with the Saints by Stephen Fowl (10/26/2015)
  Feast of All Saints Isaiah 25:6-9 or Wis Sol. 3:1-9 Ps 24 Rev 21:1-6 Jn 11:32-44 I love All Saints Day. It is one of my favorite feast days of the church year. It is a time for joyfully remembering those who preceded us in the faith, both those well-known and those known only to God. It is one of the traditional days for baptism, too. When this happens it provides a community with a chance to look both backward to remember departed members of the body and forward with those beginning their new lives in Ch...
• A Widow's Shame and Ours by Debra Dean Murphy (11/3/2015)
    Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17 (RCL); I Kings 17:10-16 (LM) Psalm 127 or 42 (RCL); Psalm 146:7-10 (LM) Hebrews 9:24-38 Mark 12:38-44 For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her ...
• Pope Francis in America by Ekklesia Project (11/4/2015)
  In September, the news industry lavished attention on Pope Francis' visit to the United States. Now, autumn has settled in and news outlets have returned to the usual suspects: politics, sports, and turning a profit for the holidays. EP endorser Barry Harvey reflects: A few weeks ago I received an email asking if I would like to contribute a brief reflection on the Ekklesia Project website on the significance of Pope Francis’s recent visit to North America. I was particularly intrigued by one of the questions in the email that served as a prompt: “In what ways did he fall short or fail?” I would say not only did he indeed fall short, but that the way he failed was a good thing too. Well, maybe not a good thing, but not surprising either. There is little do...
• All Will Be Thrown Down by Joel Shuman (11/10/2015)
  Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost Daniel 12:1-3 Psalm 16 Hebrews 10:11-25 Mark 13:1-8 By any measure, the Temple Jesus and his disciples visited on their Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem was an impressive structure. Commissioned around 20 BCE by Herod the Great, the Roman client King of Judea, “Herod’s Temple” was on one hand a conciliatory gesture toward the priestly class and leaders of the Temple who were deeply suspicious of the king (Herod had slaughtered a number of priests when he took power not that many years earlier), and on the other hand a narcis...
• Reign of Christ by Ekklesia Project (11/18/2015)
  For the last Sunday in ordinary time, we have two posts from the archive. In 2012, the last time through the cycle, Janice Love wrote

  It is possible to not be afraid because we as confessing Christians have been made aware of one of God’s great gifts: a telos – an end, God’s intended end.

  You can read her post here. Doug Lee, in his 2009 entry, wrote

  Instead of assuming that we can do what is ultimate, what if we gave ourselves to embracing the basic, the flawed, and the provisional as the way forward?

  You can read his post here....
• Strangers and Aliens by Ekklesia Project (11/19/2015)
  In the wake of the Paris attacks last week, a majority of US governors have stated they will not permit the resettlement of Syrian refugees in their respective states. Several 2016 presidential hopefuls propose barring all Syrian immigrants or selectively admitting only Christian refugees. It may seem odd that descendants of immigrants and refugees should so forcefully oppose welcoming immigrants and refugees, but here, too, there is nothing new under the sun. The Bible, however, is rather clear on the matter: Living Out of Control by Kyle Childress (11/24/2015)

  First Sunday of Advent Luke 21:25-36 Advent begins with reminding us that we are not in control. Since we are a people who value control, when we begin to feel as if we are losing it, we become fearful. Starting January 1 it will be legal in Texas to openly carry a gun if you have a license. People with a license can openly tote their firearms in places of business, shopping malls, offices, hospitals, mental health centers, colleges and universities, and even in churches (unless the church has the prerequisite official sign posted on every entrance that firearms are not allowed). I know folks who are senior faculty at universities taking early retirement from the fear of being in the classroom ...
• A Dangerous Prayer by Ekklesia Project (11/27/2015)
  You may have heard of the decision by a film distributor in the UK not to screen a short video featuring the Lord’s Prayer before the new Star Wars movie this December because some viewers may find it offensive. You may have also heard how this business decision has been received. You may not have heard from the Anglican Bishop of Sheffield, who considers why the powers and principalities have good reason take offense. Perhaps it's a worthy reminder of Make Peace by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (12/1/2015)

  Second Sunday of Advent Luke 1:68-79 Luke 3:1-6 I’d bet that many of you, like me, keep a to-do list or three to prepare for the Christmas season. It’s busy, with priority to any of the following in a given week: light stringing, card sending, cookie baking, tree decorating, gift shopping/wrapping/exchanging, party hosting, open house attending, feasting with friends/family/colleagues. There might even be a few extra church services on the calendar and a parade or two. In the second week of our liturgical season of preparation (Advent), Luke gives us opportunity to consider who we prepare for and the implications for Christians located in a consumer capitalist,...
• Am I Right or am I Wrong? by Ekklesia Project (12/2/2015)
  In this video, EP endorser Tim Otto discusses his book, Oriented to Faith, and ideas for how the church might move forward even when it seems unable to overcome serious conflict. From the Wipf and Stock page:

  Rather than embracing the conflict around gay relationships as an opportunity for the church to talk honestly about human sexuality, Christians continue to hurt one another with the same tired arguments that divide us along predictable political battle lines. If the world is to "know that we are Christians by our love," the church needs to discover better ways to live out the deep un...

• Waiting in a Violent Time by Ekklesia Project (12/6/2015)
  It has not been a peaceful Advent. The news of the past several weeks has been filled with guns, violence, death, and fear. What might we be required to surrender as we wait for the Lord? Who needs to change? Here are two reflections that use this Sunday’s Advent lectionary readings as a starting place: one by Matt Morin, and the other from Fritz Bauerschmidt. ...
• Season of Anxiety by Todd Edmondson (12/8/2015)
  Third Sunday of Advent Zephaniah 3:14-20 Philippians 4:4-7 Luke 3:7-18 One of the high-water marks of 20th century culture, an event that I revisit every year, is the 1965 television special A Charlie Brown Christmas. The fact that it continues to air fifty years after its premiere lets me know that I’m not alone in this assessment. And while the conclusion, when Linus strides onto the stage to remind Charlie Brown and all those gathered in the school gym “What Christmas is really all about,” might be the most rousing part of the short film, the opening scenes also speak in a pretty powerful way to th...
• A Multitude of Ruptures by Ekklesia Project (12/18/2015)
  The post for the 4th Sunday in Advent is Jim McCoy's post from 2012. The word “preachy” has never been a complimentary term, even less so these days. The ministers rightly highlighted in the national news who have been 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. Read More......
• Holy Family Values by Debra Dean Murphy (12/22/2015)
  Luke 2:41-52 First Sunday after Christmas Feast of the Holy Family I once lost my younger son in a department store. He was a toddler, chubby and unwieldy on his feet but, man, did he disappear in a flash. For the two or three minutes it took to find him (an eternity in such situations), my heart was in my throat. The dread was as unbearable as the relief was palpable when I finally found his impish, grinning self. This weekend offers something of a holiday smorgasbord liturgically: the First Sunday after Christmas, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, the Commemoration of St. Stephen, and the Feast of the Holy Family. There is a wide array of readings and alternate readings, too. For c...
• The Power of Fear by Jessie Larkins (12/29/2015)
  Epiphany Sunday Isaiah 60: 1-6 Ephesians 3:1-12 Matthew 2:1-12 On Monday of this week, a grand jury in Ohio declared that the police officers who shot and killed 12-year old Tamir Rice while he played with a pellet gun in a Cleveland park and then left him unattended on the ground for four minutes before administering comfort or assistance would not be indicted on any charges related to his death. The officers said the boy looked like he was 20. They said they told him to stand down. He was a large black boy in a park and they were afraid. People do stupid and sometimes horrible things when they are afraid. ...