Posts from 2016

• The Kingdom Unleashed on the World by Joel Shuman (1/6/2016)
  Baptism of the Lord First Sunday after Epiphany Isaiah 43:1-7 Psalm 29 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Before there was an ekklesia, before there was a Messiah, before there were mangers or magi or shepherds or heavenly hosts, there was talk among the common folk in and around Jerusalem—furtive whispers and improbably hopeful snippets of conversation among a people long since accustomed to injustice and subjugation at the hands of series of imperial oppressors and collaborators from among their own leaders. The topic of conversation was not new in ...
• Not Yet at the Wedding Banquet by Brian Volck (1/12/2016)
  Second Sunday after Epiphany Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 62:1-5 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 John 2:1-11 This is one of those blessed Sundays in which the Catholic and Revised Common lectionaries are almost exactly concordant, the only differences being the inclusion or absence of a few verses in the first two readings. How interesting, then, that today’s gospel reading is often mined to text-proof theological positions in direct contradiction to one another. That details of the wedding at Cana passage – an episode that appears only in John’s gospel and designated by the author as the first of Jesus’s...
• Transformative Worship by Timothy W. Ross (1/19/2016)
  Third Sunday after Epiphany Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Nehemiah 8:1-10 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Luke 4:14-21 Today’s scriptures tell the story of two worship gatherings. Nehemiah describes a reboot of worship in Jerusalem by recently returned refugees from Babylon. We don’t know if this account describes a typical worship experience, but let’s hope so. The gathering took place at the city gates. Ezra, surrounded by fellow priests and Levites, processed through the throng, carrying the sacred text. After years of exile, God’s Word would be heard in Jerusalem. Ezra climbed onto the wooden platf...
• The Unwelcome Word by Jana Bennett (1/28/2016)
  Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 This Sunday’s Gospel gives us the conclusion to the gripping story we heard last week about the Jubilee Year. Last week, Jesus read from Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor – the year of Jubilee. More than that, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It has been fulfilled NOW. And NOW. And NOW. We discover that the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor, isn’t only the Jubilee as we have...
• God, Presidents, and the Running of the World by Ekklesia Project (2/2/2016)
  The Ekklesia Project does not endorse political candidates, nor does it take positions in partisan political controversies, but its friends and endorsers live in a world in which Karl Barth urged Christians to read both the Bible and the newspaper, interpreting the latter through the former. Debra Dean Murphy, an Ekklesia Project endorser and leader, takes Barth’s approach as the already tiresome political season enters a new phase.

  An excerpt: Would-be American presidents may always feel this pressure—either from within or without—to cloak themselves in religious garb, sometimes heavily, sometimes lightly; to see themselves as saviors of a sort, as those called to run “the greatest country in the world” and thus have a powerful hand in running the world. This seems laughab...

• It's About Jesus by Kyle Childress (2/3/2016)
  Transfiguration Sunday Luke 9:28-36 This is a strange story; we don’t often know what to make of it. What does it mean? What does it do? Jesus on a mountain, a shining moment, a voice from on high? This is the final story we read in this season of Epiphany, the season of revelation, manifestation. In other words, this is the season when things of God should be revealed, uncovered, be brought into the light. This story is no different. So what does it reveal? Up to this moment in Luke’s gospel, there are two dramatic encounters when Jesus Christ is revealed for who he is: Jesus’ baptism back in Luke 3 and this transfiguration on the mountain. In this story, Jesus takes Peter, James, and Jo...
• Identity Politics by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (2/10/2016)
  First Sunday in Lent Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Luke 4:1-13 This time of year, especially every fourth year, we find ourselves in the US of A faced with representatives of the powers and principalities of this world. They offer to order the nation around things we most want - psychological safety, economic security, access to “someone like me” brokering power - in exchange for allegiance symbolized by a vote. Some even cite Scripture (or attempt to) to make their case, ostensibly as a proxy for shared identity and...
• Northwest Regional Ekklesia Project Gathering 2016 by Ekklesia Project (2/14/2016)
  Friends and endorsers of the Ekklesia Project are invited to Portland, Oregon for a regional gathering. See below for the details.  [image]...
• A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Todd Edmondson (2/16/2016)
  Second Sunday in Lent Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 Psalm 27 Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 13:31-35 For most of my life, I have been a sports fan. I will readily admit that I’ve spent far too much time watching games, reading articles and updates about my favorite players (although my means of doing so has changed dramatically—I used to watch the mailbox for the arrival of Sports Illustrated for Kids; now I simply check my Twitter feed), and listening to the so-called experts argue loudly about sports-related topics on ESPN and on various radio call-in shows. ...
• Gospel Politics by Ekklesia Project (2/19/2016)
  The political dimensions of the Church and the Gospel it preaches are utterly lost on the US news industry until someone commits the faux pas of "mixing religion and politics." Catholic theologian Matthew Shadle reflects on the latest breach of decorum, Pope Francis' visit to Mexico, which was a back page story until Francis crossed the line....
• Danger: Holy Ground by Ragan Sutterfield (2/25/2016)
  Third Sunday in Lent, Year C Exodus 3:1-15 Psalm 63:1-8 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Luke 13:1-9 I have two daughters; one is four, the other one. I am not a particularly anxious father, but it doesn’t take much to recognize the fragility of life, the many dangers that threaten it. There are cars, there are electrical sockets, there are long flights of stairs; there are hard things and sharp corners, there are choking hazards everywhere. The world is full of dangers and ...
• Becoming Home by Shannon Schaefer (3/2/2016)
  Fourth Sunday in Lent Joshua 5:9-12 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 "what is the word beyond. home. after home. where is it. this word. why can i not remember how to say this thing. this feeling that is my whole body." --Nayyirah Waheed “I think that love comes so seldom, so brittle, that I'm always knocked over by the offer of a little. But asking for a lot would take a lot of bravery.” A friend and I had spent the afternoon in the sun and the breeze talking about relationships, and after, I’d had this dawning vision that perhaps she was worthy of more love than sh...
• I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? by Stephen Fowl (3/8/2016)
  Fifth Sunday of Lent Isaiah 43:16-21 Psalm 126 Philippians 3:4-14 John 12:1-8 Deep into Lent, it seems appropriate to have a gospel reading that focuses on preparing Jesus for his death. It is also refreshing to have a set of readings that focus on transformation and renewal. In Isaiah, just before the passage for this Sunday, the LORD announces the immanent defeat of Babylon. From there, today’s reading begins with an allusion to God’s deliverance of the Israelites and the defeat of the Egyptians at the Red Sea. Although this is Israel’s climact...
• The Death of Jesus by Stephen Fowl (3/15/2016)
  Palm/Passion Sunday Luke 19:28-40 Luke 22:14-23:56 Beginning with his entry into Jerusalem and culminating with his crucifixion, this Sunday is devoted to the death of Jesus. He died as part of a public execution. Until relatively recently states, governments and empires always executed their perceived enemies publicly. It was an opportunity for the powers that be to make a statement. The Romans were particularly good at this. Their victims became billboards for the empire’s power. From the perspective of the Romans, Jesus’ death on the cross was simply one more occasion for the empire to announce that if you disrupt things, and even if we t...
• Resurrection and the Way by Joel Shuman (3/22/2016)
  Easter Sunday Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-18 Easter has long since become, at least in certain Protestant circles, a day aimed largely at “catching” a few from the crowds in the pews that otherwise make themselves scarce at ecclesial gatherings. This means, to the extent such efforts are made in given congregations, pastors and other church leaders must attempt a precarious balancing act, looking to incentivize attendance among non-churchgoers with perquisites and simplify the liturgy and sermon to make them more “rele...
• Belief, Bodies, and Freedom by Jana Bennett (3/30/2016)
  Second Sunday of Easter Acts 5:12-32 Psalm 118 Revelation 1:4-19 John 20:19-31 The temptation, even post-Resurrection, not to believe in the risen body of Jesus Christ our Lord – well, it’s real. How many Christians – theologians, bishops, and pastors among them – have wrestled with the claims we make about Jesus over the centuries? Some have said, “Jesus is resurrected in our memory.” Others have suggested that there’s no need – not really – to believe in the risen Lord. What matters is that we follow his message, more or less to love each other. I think o...
• When the Wars Are Done by Jim McCoy (4/8/2016)
  Third Sunday of Easter John 21:1-19 The start of baseball season brings the usual acknowledgement of Jackie Robinson’s 1947 breaking of the color line in Major League Baseball. The pleasant plaudits often mask the upheaval, furor, and continuing effects of that event in history. In his acclaimed elegy to the 1950’s Brooklyn Dodgers, sports journalist Roger Kahn, writing from the perspective of 20 year-hindsight, says,

  That time seems simpler than today, but mostly because the past always seems simpler when the wars are done. Jackie Robinson was a focus. At big, dark Number 42, forces converged: white hatred for his black pride, for his prophetic defiance and simply for his colo...

• Learning to be Sheep by Brian Volck (4/13/2016)
  Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 9:36-43 OR Acts 13:14, 43-52 Psalm 23 Revelation 7:9-17 John 10:22-30 Sheep again, that well-worn metaphor. The Bible tells of countless flocks and many working shepherds: Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Amos, and the shepherds of Bethlehem. The image of a shepherd tending a flock (the latter a frequent stand-in for the people of Israel) recurs often. In the Old Testament, shepherd imagery may point to God, the promised Messiah, or human leaders appointed by God: p...
• Love = Obedience by Timothy W. Ross (4/21/2016)
  Fifth Sunday of Easter John 13:31-35 "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Commandments. Rules. Can’t live with them; can’t live without them. We scoff at rules. We chafe under the control of those who make them. We bend them and break them and try to explain them away. Sometimes rules seem out of date, senseless. Have you ever seen those lists of the nutty rules some states still have on the books? In Tennessee, it’s illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle. In Indiana, it's against the law to shoot open a can of food. In Kentucky, it's a crime to use a reptile during ...
• Don't Be Afraid by Debra Dean Murphy (4/26/2016)
      The Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 16:9-15 (RCL); Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 (LM) Psalm 67 (RCL); Psalm 67:2-8 (LM) Revelation 21:10- 22:5 (RCL); Revelation 21:1014, 22-23 (LM) John 14:23-29

  Improvisational Gospel by Kyle Childress (5/3/2016)

  Seventh Sunday of Easter Acts 16:16-34 Theologian David Ford uses the term “improvisation” in his book Self and Salvation to describe our worship and our singing. God gives us God’s good gifts and the church takes those gifts and transposes them, giving them back to God in offering. We take the tune God gives and we improvise with it, playing it in our context, with our particular gifts and our particular voices to bring further glory to God. Or the principalities and powers give us violence, despair, and hopelessness and we take that and improvise, transpose, and turn it into something for God’s glory. This is the meaning of worship and witness. Acts 16 is a story about this kind of impro...
• What Wishes Pentecost to Be? by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (5/12/2016)
  Pentecost Sunday Acts 2:1-21 Psalm 104:24-34 John 14:8-17 The UMC Lectionary Calendar suggests a framing question for Pentecost, which curiously doesn’t mention the Holy Spirit at all: What can you do to make Pentecost the day that you as a congregation witness about Jesus Christ to your neighbors who do not yet know his saving love? The question is not without merit, but it may be getting ahead of itself. Among the dangers in approaching Pentecost with a question that directs us to focus on what we do to a subset of other people is the assumption that we can identify the needy neighbor. Once you’ve pegged s...
• Trinity Sunday by Ekklesia Project (5/20/2016)
  The Ekklesia Project Lectionary Reflections archive is deep and wide, so when we don't have a new post for a week, it is not difficult to go back and find a previous post that is still rich and relevant. For Trinity Sunday of 2016, we have chosen three posts for you to re-discover. 2008 from Debra Dean Murphy 2010 from Ragan Sutterfield 2014 from Anna MacDonald Dobbs...
• Choices by Todd Edmondson (5/25/2016)

  Second Sunday after Pentecost

  1 Kings 18:20-21, (22-29), 30-39, Psalm 96, Galatians 1:1-12, Luke 7:1-10 One of the stories my parents like to tell on me involves a trip to the local convenience store when I was about six years old. It seems that my parents wanted to give me a treat, so they took me to the aisle where the candy bars were on display and told me I could pick one out. Instead of making a beeline toward the M...
• A Morsel From Your Hand by Shannon Schaefer (6/1/2016)
  Third Sunday after Pentecost 1 Kings 17:8-24 As I lifted my eyes from the letter I was writing seated in the bookstore café, I searched for a thought while I watched a woman ride in the door on a Walmart motorized cart. My son, across from me, was lost in the pages of a fantasy novel. I looked back down, pen to the paper to finish my sentence, and when I looked up a moment later, she was next to our table, had come straight to us. She said, “hello,” then looked away, fighting the words and gearing up for rejection. Half through her explanation, feeling awkward and wanting to end her humiliation, I gently cut her off and said, “Do you need money?” Her answer was, “Yes, $26,” an amount so exact, so without expla...
• What We Owe by Ragan Sutterfield (6/9/2016)
  Luke 7:36-8:3 (Proper 6:Year C) At one time I taught at a Christian high school where most kids were relatively well off and for the years I taught there I always worked in a discussion on privilege. The students would assure me that they were not privileged and that their parents weren’t either. “My dad built his business from scratch,” they’d say, or “my parents have worked hard for everything they’ve got.” The lines, rehearsed and repeated, were the same every time. I’d lead them through a series of exercises and thought experiments that would help most, in the end, see their advantages—the head start, however har...
• Pain and Hope by Jessie Larkins (6/14/2016)
  Fifth Sunday after Pentecost 1 Kings 19:1-15a Psalm 42 Galatians 3:23-29 Luke 8:26-39 Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure, into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; that in boundless silence I may grow strong enough to endure and flexible enough to share your grace. Amen. --Guerillas of Grace, 28 These are tough days for those who mount pulpits to proclaim the Word of God. Sitting, as I am, on this Monday before Sunday, wondering ho...
• Found in Translation by Jim McCoy (6/23/2016)
  Sixth Sunday after Pentecost 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 Psalm 77 Galatians 5:1, 13-25 Luke 9:51-61 “My 1865 Webster’s defines translation as ‘being conveyed from one place to another; removed to heaven without dying.’ We must have an art that translates, conveys us to the heaven of that deepest reality which otherwise ‘we may die without ever having known’; that transmits us there, not in the sense of bringing information to the receiver but of putting the receiver in the place of the event – alive.” -- Denise Levertov, “Great Possessions” “The Tr...
• Snaring Satan by Brian Volck (6/29/2016)
  Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Kings 5:1-14 OR Isaiah 66:10-14 Galatians 6:7-16 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 "The cross of the Lord was the devil's mousetrap. The bait by which he was caught was the Lord's death" - St. Augustine, Sermon 263 The modern mind doesn’t know what to do with the idea of “Satan,” and, try as I might to make it otherwise, I have a modern mind. Like many others, I don't know if the Hebrew, S-t-n, “the adversary or accuser,” or the Greek, diabolos, “the slanderer,” can st...
• Neighboring by Stephen Fowl (7/6/2016)
  Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 10:25-37 Our gospel reading for this week contains the story of the Good Samaritan. The story is so well-known that the phrase Good Samaritan has made its way into everyday English usage. We use it to refer to someone who unexpectedly and out of the blue does a generous or even heroic act for someone in trouble. Unfortunately, the past month has given us far too many opportunities to point out good Samaritans. The phrase made its way into our everyday discourse from our Gospel reading for this Sunday. Our familiarity with this story and our conventional use of the term Good Samaritan might lead us to miss some of the more interesting details o...
• New Endings, New Beginnings by Jessie Larkins (7/14/2016)
  Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Amos 8:1-12 Colossians 1:15-28 Luke 10:38-42 My father and I often respond to absurd news reports shared by text message or email forward with the tongue in cheek response: “A sure sign that the apocalypse is upon us.” In the past few weeks I have not been sure if that’s an appropriate joke to make. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and violence and death plague every news cycle. My cries have been “Come, Lord Jesus” more often than they’ve been jokes or hashtags. When I read the Old Testament lesson appointed for this coming weekend and hear Amos’ denunciation of 8th ce...
• The Last Word by Joel Shuman (7/20/2016)
  Tenth Sunday after Pentecost Hosea 1:2-10 Colossians 2:6-19 Luke 11:1-13 This week’s lectionary readings invite a nuanced continuation of the theme developed last week by Jessie Larkins, who juxtaposed God’s blistering and apparently final judgment upon Judah from Amos 8 (vv. 1-12) with the very different message of Colossians 1:15-28, where judgment is leveled not so much against a people as an idolatrous way of life that the Cross of Jesus makes it possible to abandon. Again this week we are offered a word of prophetic judgment (from Hosea) and a reiteration of the author of Colossians’ account of what transp...
• The Beginning of a Heavenly Sowing by Shannon Schaefer (7/27/2016)
  Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 12:13-21 “Imitate the earth, O mortal. Bear fruit as it does; do not show yourself inferior to inanimate soil. After all, the earth does not nurture fruit for its own enjoyment, but for your benefit… Let the end of your harvesting be the beginning of a heavenly sowing.” -St. Basil the Great, “On Social Justice.” I arrived at the community garden early one morning, and followed the voices to the greenhouse at the back edge of the property. As I stepped through the door into the humidity, I was overwhelmed by the pungent aroma of soil and onions. Instead of the usual black trays of infant plants getting a good start on growth, before me were long rows of drying tables, he...
• What Are You Preparing For? by Ragan Sutterfield (8/3/2016)
    Proper 14 (C) Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24 Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 Luke 12:32-40 If you’re planning on buying a winter place in Miami Beach, I wouldn’t advise it. It’s an island and the only thing on the rise there is the sea level. As Elizabeth Kolbert chronicled last fall in the New Yorker, when a super tide comes crashing in it...
• A Deeper Communion by Todd Edmondson (8/9/2016)
  Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 5:1-7 Hebrews 11:29-12:2 Luke 12:49-56 “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus asks his disciples. “No, I tell you, but rather division.” At first glance, Jesus’ proclamation seems to resonate profoundly with our current cultural moment, which has a surplus of division and a deficit of peace. The faction-based rhetoric clogging our airwaves and the vitriol that plagues our social media sites seems just the sort of thing that divides “father against son” and “mother against daughter.” We have elevated div...
• God Calls People by Timothy W. Ross (8/18/2016)
  Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Jeremiah 1:4-10 Hebrews 12:18-29 Luke 13:10-17 I know, I know. There’s no one that pastoral types like me distrust more than someone who declares they are called by God to do this or that. Self-proclaimed prophets and preachers in church are a dime a dozen. Believe me, I am one! In an election year we have to make do with narcissists who tell us they are God’s answers to the nation’s pressing issues. Yet if you pressed me on the matter, I would be forced to admit that I too have been called by God. My real introduction to this passage came long ago when I li...
• Slavery and the Cost of Discipleship by Kelly Johnson (8/31/2016)
  Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Philemon 1:1-21 Tradition supplies a backstory for the short book Philemon: the slave Onesimus had run away from his owner, seeking refuge in the anonymity of Rome. But there he encountered Paul and was converted. In fact, from the text, we know very little about what how Onesimus ended up with Paul and less about what followed. Still the letter continues to speak to us about power and the cost of discipleship, a cost spelled out in no uncertain terms in today’s gospel. Paul’s “dear friend and co-worker” Philemon, a believer whose faith Paul praises, had a slave. It shocks us now to realize that the early Christian communities included not on...
• Lost Sheep and Broken People by Brian Volck (9/6/2016)
  Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Exodus 7:11-14 OR Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15: 1-10 I once imagined the easiest commandment to keep was the one against idolatry. It seemed rather simple: don’t go sacrificing animals to statues of false gods and I’d be fine. I was much younger then. I hadn’t yet lived into life’s ambiguities, hadn’t yet recognized the power of my own desires, hadn’t yet read enough theology – Augustine in particular. When I understood idolatry as getting the order of my loves ...
• Money and Friends by Stephen Fowl (9/12/2016)
  Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 16:1-13 There are a number of interpretive puzzles in this story of the so-called dishonest manager that forms the gospel reading for this Sunday. I will try to say something about them in due course. First, let us look at the end of the story. Here Jesus is talking, adding some comments to the story he has just told. He concludes these comments by saying that no one can serve two masters for obvious reasons. Then he says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” Whether or not I always serve God, I hesitate to accept the idea that I might be serving wealth. Rather, wealth is there to serve me. I think tha...
• Fear of Beggars by Jessie Larkins (9/21/2016)
  Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 OR Amos 6:1-7 1 Timothy 6:6-19 Luke 16:19-31 When I served as the pastor of a local church I often had folks in my office who wanted to know what to do about the guy on the street corner flying a sign. I’ve been part of churches who have made “blessing bags” to keep in their cars, full of items like bottled water and socks, to avoid passing cash to the homeless that live on the streets of our town. (Because, you know, drugs and stuff). I have had folks confess to ...
• The Spiritual Dimensions of Justice Work by Ekklesia Project (9/21/2016)
  [image]Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, is leaving her position as a law professor at Ohio State University to teach and study at a seminary. Here, she explains her new directions. Something Much Greater at Stake...
• Captivities by Joel Shuman (9/28/2016)
  Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Lamentations 1:1-6 OR 3:19-26 OR Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4 Psalm 137 2 Timothy 1:1-14 Luke 17:5-10 This week’s texts share, at least implicitly, the common theme of captivity. From Jeremiah’s lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and the hard life of servitude facing those exiled to Babylon, to the exiled Psalmist’s wondering about the very possibility of faithfulness for the remnant of...
• Distraction Sickness by Ekklesia Project (10/3/2016)

  If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation.

  [image] Andrew Sullivan is a controversial writer who uses illustrations that may be offensive to some readers, but his article on modern struggles with technology is our latest link for the Signs of the Times.
• Embracing Place by Shannon Schaefer (10/7/2016)
  Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 What will I do? What will I do without exile, and a long night that stares at the water? -Mahmoud Darwish, from “Who Am I, Without Exile?” What is exile in American culture? What is home? The way we might define both perhaps differs dramatically from how they might have been defined a century ago, or how they are still defined in cultures less marked by our infatuation with transience. To know exile, we must first know home, and we are arguably a culture of non-places. With mobility a marker supposedly for our freedom, we fall too often for the lie that transience is the path to transcendence. We have perhaps embraced th...
• Prayer in the Zone by Ragan Sutterfield (10/12/2016)
  Proper 24, Year C Jeremiah 31:27-34 Psalm 119:97-104 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Luke 18:1-8 In Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker there is a room in the middle of a mysterious place called the “Zone.” It is a place where life on earth was interupted by an alien force and it has become dangerous to anyone who moves through it without care--the landscape always shifting, the wreckage of civilization overgrown by the wild. Stalkers are the people...
• The Beautiful Reality of Repentance by Todd Edmondson (10/19/2016)
  Almost thirty years ago, I saw a movie that has stayed with me ever since. The Mission, directed in 1986 by Roland Joffe, isn’t exactly the kind of film that an eleven year-old would normally be drawn to, and I’m sure there was much in this narrative about Jesuits in 18th-century South America that I didn’t fully grasp when I first watched it. But because film can be such a powerful visual medium, there were scenes that left an indelible impression on me, so that I find myself going back to them even now, decades later. One such moment occurs when Mendoza, the murderous slave trader who is seeking to change his life, comes to the end of a journey. He has made his way upriver to the Jesuit outpost where the missionary priests are ministering to the Guarani tribe. In the past, he ...
• Loved for What We Have in Us by Timothy W. Ross (10/25/2016)
  Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 19:1-10 From Jerusalem, perched 2500 feet above sea level, it is all downhill to Jericho, 850 feet below sea level. That makes for a hot, muggy place, but Jericho is shaded by palm trees and watered by cool springs. Jericho produces the best fruits and veggies you’ll find anywhere. And Jericho has been around for a long time—at least 11,000 years. Jericho is a land flowing with milk and honey. That’s what the children of Israel thought when they emerged from the wilderness and marched around Jericho’s walls. Mark Antony thought so too. He gave Jericho as a gift to Cleopatra, tossing in Arabia as an afterthought. Cleo leased Jericho ou...
• God of the Living by Dan McClain (11/2/2016)
  Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Haggai 1:15b-2:9 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38 Our lectionary readings for this week take us to the heart of our anxiety for control, power, and security. From Haggai’s assurances that the glory of Israel was never in the accomplishments of her rulers but in the LORD and his inscrutable ways, to Paul’s comforting words to the people of Thessalonica, to Jesus’s re-orientation of the Sadducees' question about marriage in the resurrection—these passages simultaneously challenge and assure the Christian, especially the Christ...
• Election by Ekklesia Project (11/8/2016)
  On this day, as the season of election culminates in the U.S., our friend Stanley Hauerwas offers reflections on election, worship, and the slow formation of a people capable of speaking truthfully to one another. May it serve the church. ...
• Don't Panic (The End is Good News) by Kelly Johnson (11/8/2016)
  Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 65:17-25 OR Malachi 4:1-2a 2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13 Luke 21:5-19 Updated Post At the end of the liturgical year, as darkness falls each night a couple of minutes sooner than the last, the church turns our attention to the end of all things. We are mortal and our world will come to an end, for each of us and for all of us, and this both terrifies and fascinates us. People love stories about the end of the world. The long winter is coming, meteors hurtle towa...
• King/Fool by Ekklesia Project (11/18/2016)
  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. John Jay Alvaro's post from 2013 is our post for the last week of this lectionary cycle.  ...
• Ordinary Things, Extraordinary Vision by Jana Bennett (11/23/2016)
  First Sunday in Advent Isaiah 2:1-5 Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:36-44 A lot of the scholarly scripture commentary on today’s reading from Isaiah focuses on a question Christians have been debating for a long while: is the life to which God calls us realistic? Or is it an idealistic picture that is meant to give us small comfort, but clearly not meant for us in any real kind of way today? After all, the image Isaiah gives us for imagining our future with God is anything but the reality of the world we know today. In Isaiah’s vision, nations come together, united in climbing the mountains of God. The...
• Disowning the Right Things by Brian Volck (11/30/2016)
  Second Week in Advent Isaiah 11:1-10 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12 In the days since the US presidential election (which now seems but one phase in an accelerating process of rancorous division), I’ve returned often to a familiar prayer from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude:

  My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you doe...

• You Want It Darker by Debra Dean Murphy (12/6/2016)
  The Third Sunday of Advent     Isaiah 35:1-10 (vv. 1-6a, 10 in Lectionary for Mass) Psalm 146:5-10 (vv. 6-10 in LM) James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11 “They’re lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim.”

  Leonard Cohen

  A confession: I do not...
• Our Pious Disbelief in “God-With-Us” by Jana Bennett (12/13/2016)
  Fourth Sunday in Advent Isaiah 7:10-17 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-25 King Ahaz – the king in today’s prophecy from Isaiah – is a man standing in great fear. To understand why, we have to go back a few verses to get the context of this passage. Two of Ahaz’s nearest enemies have united against him: the Northern Kingdom of Israel (a Jewish nation that had, in previous days, been part of a united kingdom with Judah), and Aram, a non-Jewish nation. Ahaz fears the bloodshed and destruction that war inevitably brings. We, today, can understand Ahaz’s fear. Surely we have all been in some kind of position like that...
• Marvelous Things by Janice Love (12/20/2016)
  Christmas Day Isaiah 52: 7-10 Psalm 98 Hebrews 1: 1-12 John 1: 1-14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ~ John 1:14 Are you ready? That’s the question I often hear around this time of year when out and about. Of course, I understand what is meant by it, but can’t help thinking to myself, how could you ever be? Last year, gravitational waves were detected from an event that happened over a billion years ago, long before humans even ...
• There’s a New <del>Kid /</del> King In Town by Jessie Larkins (12/28/2016)
  First Sunday after Christmas Isaiah 63:7-9 Psalm 148 Hebrews 2:10-18 Matthew 2:13-23 Sweet little Jesus Boy — They made you be born in a manger. Sweet little Holy Child — Didn't know who you was. Didn't know you'd come to save us, Lord; To take our sins away. Our eyes was blind, we couldn't see, We didn't know who you was. -Robert MacGimsey, Sweet Little Jesus Boy (1934) One of my favorite Christmas Eve memories from childhood is sitting in the dim light of the sanctuary at my grandparent’s Methodist church in Richmond, VA. Every year the sam...