Psalm

Maybe the parable of the persistent widow isn't about God. Maybe it's about us.

The Dakota Access pipeline poses a threat to indigenous people. Their resistance poses tough questions for all of us.

What is Jesus thinking when he tells the parable of the dishonest steward?

A few years ago, our church installed a new water cooler—not the kind with the clear jug on top but the kind that we used back in grade school. It's a rectangular prism that rises straight from the floor. When you press the circular silver button, water flows in a gentle arc so that you can lap the cooled water up into your mouth. (I had always called that a water fountain, but David, who helped us install it, taught me that a fountain is a landscape feature in your front yard.) We hadn't had a working water cooler at St. John's in a long time, and it was a welcomed addition.

Many people are bound. Some don’t even know it. The difference between being free and being bound is at the center of our Gospel text this week.

It's 2016 and the problem of evil is still unsolved. It's found a megaphone in Stephen Fry, who offers more rhetorical power than originality.

It's 2016 and the problem of evil is still unsolved. It's found a megaphone in Stephen Fry, who offers more rhetorical power than originality.

One of the gifts of the lectionary is that a biblical text wears different vestments depending on when it shows up for Christian worship.

When we are overwhelmed by our daily struggles, when we get weary because of the dehumanization that results from hatred and greed, Proverbs 8 and Psalm 8 remind us how God conceives of us as human beings crowned with glory and honor.

Why would Psalms and Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian pop into my head?

A shepherd’s staff has a crook for drawing the sheep away from danger, and a blunt end for prodding them toward places they would rather not go. This week’s texts embrace the tension between the two in the shepherd’s role.

And what would happen if we didn't?

And what would happen if we didn't?

And what would happen if we didn't?

Last month, both the scientifically minded and the scientifically challenged paused to contemplate the far reaches of the cosmos.

I'm a bit of a congregational song nerd, and the church music folks I know talk about things like "sound pools" and "heart songs."

Sound pools are what Mennonite musician, teacher, and hymnologist Mary Oyer and her students (who became my teachers) describe as the body of music that a culture or community shares.

I'm a bit of a congregational song nerd, and the church music folks I know talk about things like "sound pools" and "heart songs."

Sound pools are what Mennonite musician, teacher, and hymnologist Mary Oyer and her students (who became my teachers) describe as the body of music that a culture or community shares.

The lectionary readings for Ash Wednesday are the same each year. So it almost doesn’t feel like Ash Wednesday if I go through the day without hearing Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”