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There was a headline yesterday, the day after the big U.S. presidential debate, that made me despair of being a human being in the 21st century. I guess to be precise, it was a tagline underneath a headline, but it was no less depressing for being in a smaller font. The tagline wasn’t found on some trashy tabloid website where you would expect to find a predictable parade of click-baiting garbage. No, this was a national mainstream media article. The offending sentence read thus:

Find Out Who Lied About What and Why

Our family was "that family" in church.

I'm sure most of us are familiar with what I mean by "that family." It could be the one that always comes in late, or the one with kids making weird clicking noises during times of silence, or kids who decide the aisle is ripe for a repeat performance of Usain Bolt's gold-medal effort in the 200m.

If the law and the prophets could have provided some warning to the rich man, there must more than his wealth that matters in this parable about him and Lazarus.

It’s a joy to engage face-to-face again with students in the classroom. But it also brings a constant stream of decisions about how to build a learning community.

At Sunday night's Emmys, I was thrilled to see Sarah Paulson win an award for her work in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

Some bemoaned yesterday's difficult Gospel passage. As I look at the Gospel lesson for this coming Sunday, however, I think it may be even more difficult but for the opposite reason.

You don't want a nice church, or so I am led to understand. You want a church that zealously defends the Truth.

Silly me, I thought I had a lot to show our newest first graders.

“I know you pray a lot, but what actually gets done?”

I like homiletical challenges. I enjoy preaching on Trinity Sunday and when Jesus tells us that anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. I like tackling the tough doctrines and demands of the gospel. But Sunday's Gospel lesson, the parable of the dishonest manager? That takes difficult to another order of magnitude.