31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, RCL)

It's easy to love Mr. C. It's not as easy to love Mrs. M., and it’s stone-cold not easy to love that guy down the street.

How can Paul navigate the choppy waters of a pagan environment, with its idols and temples? The obvious place to start is the Shema.

Security and risk are nothing new. Today's biblical texts deal not with stocks and bonds exactly, but with living in the real circumstances of a difficult and uncertain world while also accepting the possibility of good, of help and support, comfort and security.

I read this week’s lectionary passages last summer in the Urubamba Valley in my native Peru, and in my native Spanish: “Pero Cristo ya vino, y ahora el es el Sumo sacerdote . . .” At first I resisted the Hebrews passage, as I prefer Jesus’ concrete teachings to more abstract theological concepts. So, while leading a tour group across the Andes, I turned to Mark: “And man must love God with all his heart and with all his mind and with all his strength; and he must love his neighbor as he loves himself.”