A Larger Story by Todd Edmondson (1/4/2017)...es to share in the lives of those we serve.
As many pastors would likely attest, these moments are special not just because of the ceremonies themselves, but because of the way they connect to something bigger. They allow us to look beyond the moment and see how that moment fits into a larger view of God’s work.
Of all these powerful and holy moments that we as ministers and as members of ...
I Pledge Allegiance by Timothy W. Ross (1/10/2017)...xt week we inaugurate a new president.
We had such high hopes for our last president. He was good looking, cool, smart. He had a beautiful family. He read books. He shot threes. He spoke in complete sentences. He was black and white and African and Indonesian and American. He was Kansas and Chicago. He was Yale and Harvard and the University of Chicago. He was Christian. He was Muslim—well, it...
Christ's Mind in Us by Dan McClain (1/20/2017)...d we all need hope.<!--more-->
The readings appointed for this Sunday are full of hope in God’s work through us. Isaiah (9:1–4) prophecies that Galilee will be the site in which God’s glory becomes apparent to the nations. Isaiah describes that glory as a great light that will emerge from the darkness, as a cause for rejoicing amongst those who are in anguish, and as a relief from oppression an...
The Day the Circus Left Town by Jim McCoy (1/26/2017)...n beings]. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?</strong></blockquote>
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, “After Ten Years”<!--more-->
<blockquote><strong>Matthew does not delineate gradations of ‘church,‘ with the greatest of these residing somewhere beyond the local congregat...
More Righteous than the Scribes and Pharisees by Stephen Fowl (1/31/2017)...mpet seem genuinely baffled by the criticisms lodged against them. Their ritual observance seems to have been devout. They seek God. They “delight to know [God’s] ways.” They fast, humble themselves, and observe the Sabbath.
As we read further in this passage, it is clear that all of this ritual devotion is completely disconnected from the common life of their society. There is rampant inju...
Belonging to Christ by Shannon Schaefer (2/9/2017)...tched beyond the boundaries of family, to friends, and even neighbors. As a good friend said that first week, “I don’t know who my neighbors are, and I’m pretty sure they don’t know who I am either.” Others said they couldn’t understand why some were so distraught. Finding themselves confused by the depths of anguish they witnessed in their beloved ones, and wanting to “get it,” they felt they cou...
Given Lives in a Given World by Ragan Sutterfield (2/14/2017)...would be more comprehensive, but Jackson rejected that measure as still too small. Frustrated, Berry asked Jackson what economy would be large enough. Jackson replied, “the Kingdom of God.”
As we work through the Sermon on the Mount we find Jesus in the role of the new Moses, on the new Sinai, teaching God’s people the renewed Law. The instructions offered are how these people gathered as Je...
As We Watch by Brian Volck (2/23/2017)...ary proclaims it on the Sunday before Lent while the Catholic Lectionary does so on the Second Sunday of Lent. Both lectionaries give the First Sunday of Lent over to the temptation of Jesus in the desert.
Why should the Transfiguration story – which each of the synoptic gospels places about midway in the course of things – mark our yearly return to the Lenten journey? Standard answers include ...