Living by the Word
Reflections on the lectionary readings by pastors, preachers, and biblical scholars
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Some rights reserved by Abdallah A. Mansour.
I kept losing track of what I was going to say next. Yet it may have been my best sermon.
Whether we are sheep or people or runaway bunnies, we cannot run away from God.
Again and again in scripture, pounding hearts become burning hearts.
As a seminarian, I never seemed to be there when Jesus arrived.
"Were you there?" asks the song. No, no one was.
In the 2,200 pages of Boswell's Life of Johnson, the protagonist's death is dispensed with in 36 pages.
"You can't be born again," I said, "you're a Lutheran. You are the chairman of the board of trustees."
Only one who loves you knows your deepest desires.
Embracing Jesus as the Christ means becoming a new person, not a better one.
Neither the journey nor the wilderness comes naturally to Americans anymore.
When two or more are gathered, factions lurk.
