The readings for Sunday, April 28, 2024: First Reading: Acts 8:26-40 Psalm: Psalm 22:24-30 (Psalm 22:25-31 NRSV) Second Reading: 1 John 4:7-21 Gospel: John 15:1-8 The Gospel of John includes several "I am" stories, like the one we find in the Gospel for this week. Unlike the idea of Jesus as shepherd, which might be unfamiliar to those of us who live so far away from farms, the idea of Jesus as the vine, and believers as the branches isn't that hard for most of us to grasp. Most of us have watched plants grow, and we understand that one branch of the plant won't do well if we separate it ..read more

 As is usual on a Tuesday or a Thursday, I have less time to write.  Soon I need to get ready to head down the mountain to Spartanburg Methodist College--but today is the last day of face to face classes for me this semester. Yesterday, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew that the tile crew would return.  I knew that I had plenty of tasks to do at my desk, and my spouse has a wide variety of home repair tasks to choose from each day.  I sat at my desk and got to work. I got grading done and e-mails done and a bit of writing revision, the tinkering just before a pape ..read more

 My day is quickly filling up as the various ends of semesters all come into sight.  But let me record a moment from yesterday's worship service at Faith Lutheran that went really well. Yesterday's Gospel was John 10:  11-18, which talks about the sheep hearing the shepherd's voice.  For the youth sermon, I wanted to demonstrate how hard it can be to hear individual voices when there's so much noise, and how hard it can be to hear God's voice in the midst of all the noise. Before the service started, I wrote statements on paper slips, like "Hey, sheep, come here and I'll ma ..read more

I'm really pleased with how I ended my sermon that I will preach in a few hours.  The text is John 10:  11-18, a text which meditates on shepherds, sheep, and what the shepherd does that the hired hand doesn't.  Here's the ending: Let’s use the language of the 23rd Psalm as we analyze whether or not we’re hearing the Shepherd’s voice. Are we being called to green pastures and calm water? Does our cup run over? Are our souls restored? Once we determine that we’re hearing God’s voice, hopefully it will be easier to follow our Good Shepherd along the right pathways. And when we d ..read more

 Two years ago, I was part of a seminary class that studied Jericho Brown's duplexes.  As part of my final project, I wrote some duplexes of my own.  I went through my poetry notebooks looking for lines that didn't make it into a poem, and I created a Word document of them.  I ended up with lots of abandoned lines in a big document, and I return to the document periodically when I need inspiration. This week, I used those lines in a different way.  I needed something different to do with my English 100 class.  I decided to celebrate National Poetry Month with a co ..read more

 Last night, my internship experience came to a close--it was a natural end, nothing dire.  But it does feel like an event worth noting. First, some background.  Wesley handles internships differently than some  schools.  It's a part-time job coupled with a class where we meet each week to process our experiences together as a group.  The part-time position can be in a church, the typical learning to be a parish pastor kind of job.  But it could also be in any number of other settings, from prisons to hospitals to non-profits.  If a seminarian has a spec ..read more

The readings for Sunday, April 21, 2024: Acts 4:5-12 Psalm 23 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. (Ps. 23:1) 1 John 3:16-24 John 10:11-18 Here's another familiar set of images in today's Gospel, ones that are so familiar that we neglect to see the strangeness. But read the passage again and notice how many times Jesus says he's the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. At first, knowing the outcome of Jesus' life story as we do, we might find that a comforting thought. But imagine that you're a little lamb with a scary wolf nearby. Maybe the good shepherd kill ..read more

Before we get too far away from the Create in Me retreat, I want to make sure I record our experience with Bible Study, which was different from any we had ever done.  We had as our text Luke 5: 18-25, the story about a paralyzed man lowered through the roof where Jesus was teaching and healing.  We did some Ignatian types of meditation, imagining ourselves as part of the story. Then we did a different kind of encountering of the text.  We were divided into groups, five to a table.  We listened to our leader read the story again, and we circled words that leapt out at us.&n ..read more

I now have eclipse regret.  Perhaps I should have gone on a quest for totality.  I knew we were going to be at 85% totality, and I thought that would be enough.  But now, seeing other people's pictures and reading about their experiences, I'm wondering if I should have made more of an effort.  After all, we won't have these opportunities often, at least not in driving distance. I'm also feeling a tinge of sadness for other reasons.  I made this Facebook post yesterday afternoon:  "Strange to think about how much has changed since August 2017, the last time I viewe ..read more

Instead of doing a big post looking back at the Create in Me retreat, I am much more likely this week to write a series of smaller posts.  This morning, we are hoping that our bathroom remodel gets underway, and I still have to go to campus this week.  In short, it's not going to be a week of lots of downtime.  I'm hoping for some downtime in May. But before we get too far away from the retreat, let me remember my writing workshop on Saturday, a workshop called Preservation in Prose, a spiritual autobiography/memoir workshop.  It was a delightful group, even though there we ..read more