June 26 Ordinary 13C Luke 9 51 62
When no barbers were open for business in the summer of 2020, I cut my son’s curly hair on the steps of our front porch. The curls bounced and blew away to tangle with bushes or hide in the crevices of tree roots. Then in spring we saw them again, reinterpreted: the birds who made their nests in the trees of our yard had found my son’s locks and used them to cushion their twiggy abodes.
June 19 Ordinary 12C 1 Kings 19 1 15a
God never intended for Elijah to carry the full weight of challenging the halls of power.
June 12 Trinity Sunday C John 16 12 15
We are not the first to face complex global crises and wonder, “How can we possibly come back from this?”
June 5 nbsp Pentecost C nbsp John 14 8 17 25 27
The Spirit-driven tendency to undermine barriers goes all the way back to Peter and Paul.
May 29 Easter 7C Acts 16 16 34 John 17 20 26
Things start and end well for Paul, Silas, and their companions in Philippi. In between, not so much. Our lectionary selection concludes with the conversion of the Philippian jailer, along with his household. Prior to this passage, we witness another household conversion, that of Lydia. After the passage, the Roman authorities who have tortured and imprisoned Paul and Silas apologize and release them. The missionaries’ time in Philippi concludes with a farewell visit to Lydia.
May 26 Ascension Luke 24 44 53
The disciples struggle to understand their encounter with the risen Jesus, so Jesus teaches them a new way to understand their scriptures. So too do we turn to the scriptures to make sense of our own lives. But we need help.
There’s no such thing as pure experience. We interpret our experiences even as they happen, knowing we may tell our story to ourselves or to someone else at any time. No clean division, no gap in time, separates experience from interpretation.