A triptych for Thomas G. Long
Advent | Second Sunday of Advent (Year C)
Baruch 5:1-9 or Malachi 3:1-4 (Luke 1:68-79); Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6
Come to the river, wash away your sins, start a new life. Now—because something is coming.
November 26, 2013
John the Baptist is an acquired taste, like roquefort. He’s complex. He is an amalgamation of unanswered questions: Is he a zealot acting out the Exodus as a kind of political comedy sketch? Is he the leader of a rival faith community, a serious threat to the fledgeling Jesus movement? Is he a kind of Enkidu figure—a fugitive of our collective consciousness from the epic Gilgamesh—who crawls out of the wilderness, learns our ways well enough and then attempts to wrestle and pin our society to the ground, only to be admired briefly and then destroyed? Whatever John is, he’s not easy to put on a cracker.
December 3, 2012
In the Broadway show Book of Mormon, Elder Cunningham faces a problem. In an effort to gird his loins, he rocks out the hit "Man Up."
November 27, 2012
The early church fathers had a saying: "The best bishop is a bad bishop." In other words, we sometimes grow more through adversity than we do by encouragement and supportive spiritual direction.
August 29, 2011
For the healing we need, we cannot do better than to rely on the ancient assurances of Zechariah's hymn. Written in a time of occupation and economic disarray that eclipses our own in its uncertainty, the hymn proclaims that we are indeed free, whatever our brokenness, to worship God without fear.
by Mary Schertz
November 11, 2010