I don't know many people who would buy a used car sight unseen. No, they go and they check it out. They drive the thing. This is the doctrine we live by: "Seeing is believing." But here is a truth with which we must come to terms today. The church of the resurrected Jesus Christ is founded on a complete reversal of this doctrine. Now, it is "believing is seeing," and not the other way around ..read more

The inimitable Elizabeth Schuyler chides Alexander Hamilton in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s fabulous couplet: “You want a revolution? I want a revelation.” The crowd may have gathered expecting a revolution, a king who would topple the government, flip the script, and change their lot. But what they received was a revelation. Jesus is absolutely revealed in our sanctuaries, whether they swell to pre-pandemic participation, or whether they tenderly care for a remnant few. We can indeed catch a glimpse of Jesus in moments of transcendence witnessing art and song and dance and spectacle. But Jesus’ remin ..read more

Throughout the Christian journey, looking to God’s Son in one thing required. But the good news is that God provided a remedy, a ram in the bush if you will, and is still providing remedies for the curse that plagued us. Just as the snake-bitten people aren’t able to save themselves and were dying rapidly. Therefore, God had to provide a way for them to be saved. When they confessed their sins and requested Moses to intercede, God provided a unique remedy: They had to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. Whoever looked at the bronze snake would be healed and saved ..read more

The Ten Commandments are strategies for staying emancipated once you get away from Pharaoh. This new strategy, first of all, says you have to honor God - that's the first three commandments - to the exclusion of every idol, every "ism" such as racism, or sexism, or nationalism, or the worship of stuff that is rare or precious or attractive or beautiful or empowering. The new strategy means in the Ten Commandments to take the neighbor with utmost seriousness. So, the last five commandments are all about the neighbor and treating neighbors with legitimacy and dignity and viability and especially ..read more

Of course, Jesus (as he so often does) shattered my self-centered ambitions and expectations with…well, with the words he says in these verses to the crowd after calling Peter *Satan* for rebuking him. He said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Wait! If I want to be a follower of Jesus, a Christian, I have to *deny* myself…lose my life? Does Jesus mean I’ll have to be willing to die? I th ..read more

I invite you to think of the ways and places that you are tempted – tempted by Satan to ignore God’s love in your heart, God’s call on your life – and to recognize that God stands ready in those places of temptation to be with you. That when we are not strong enough to withstand temptation, God says, “I am here. Turn to me. Cry to me. Pray to me and I will give you the strength, the humility you need to face temptation.” I like to think of wilderness time as fallow time, from the time when our societies were agricultural and we would leave a field after it had been harvested for a year or so t ..read more

Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously, and that’s always to our detriment, failing to see the humorous parts of our own lives. And if we cannot laugh at ourselves from time to time, our lives become shallow and painful. Other times, however, we fail to see the tragic aspects of our lives. I knew a man who was a textbook workaholic. He spent ten hours a day, five days a week, on the job and often went back in on weekends. He rarely spent quality time with his wife or kids, almost never seeing his children’s ballet recitals or little league ball games. The man said to me following his divorc ..read more

Today Paul invites us to find Jesus again. Paul’s argument for the incarnation is that we too become human, we sympathize with the doubter, we contemplate with the questioner, we listen deeply to the needs of our unhoused brother and we cry and spend time with our single mother sister. We make dramatic and fun plans with the seven-year-old lemonade entrepreneur and help him understand economics and the way of Jesus. We take the time to learn another language and culture. We read the story of someone whose life has been different than our own. We get involved in a life that is not our own. We g ..read more

What has power over you? Not all power is equal. Power can be negative. It can motivate poorly. It can come from places that are self-serving. We all know of people and things that have power over us, that aren’t beneficial. The power of physical illness, as in the case of this little boy. The power of an unkind word. The power of fear. The power of insecurity. We all know these powers. Power can be adverse. In our gospel text, we read about power that is adverse ..read more

Audre Lorde reminds us that anger does not destroy; hate does. Anger provides energy so we may engage in analysis and protest, survival and justice. In today’s text Jonah marches through the city proclaiming repentance. Could it be that Jonah stands in a long prophetic tradition? That anger, when it is not rage but righteousness, can be a creative harness to declare a vision of what God intends for the world. That God’s call to the most unlikely of places is both for our transformation and the transformation of the world. God often uses those on the margins to speak truth to power. God has sen ..read more