In the Lectionary

As we contemplate mortality and finitude, I wonder if we could treasure washing the dishes.

Let’s build shrines, Peter says. He doesn’t know how to respond to a mystical mountaintop experience, and he’s afraid.

If you’re Jesus, demons will interrupt your mission of proclaiming the message of transformation and hope—even if they have to tell the truth to do it.

Idolatry seems like such an easy thing to avoid.

Paul isn’t asking us to avoid the world. But if the form of the world is passing away, the everyday is becoming a step into promise.

I used to think that the end of Samuel’s story was when he learns to listen to God. I wasn’t curious at all about what God has to say.

I eschew the danger of the river, but I know that it is where God leads me.

The Magi's alien exoticism is an intrinsic part of Matthew's story.

Luke’s first two chapters are a metaphorical retirement home for elders who are “looking forward to the consolation of Israel.”

It is not as though Mary and Joseph have a choice.

God’s word to Nathan and Gabriel’s word to Mary hold a tension that’s at the heart of biblical faith.

Mary’s song marks a transformation from seeing her condition’s weight to receiving a new power within the situation. And then, finally, she is a participant in the work of God’s spirit.

Holiness is a murky word.

No one likes the thought of an angry God. It's hard enough to deal with an angry person.

God has put "all things under his feet." Shouldn't we be worried about such a portrayal of absolute power? 

Are our days of destruction the "day of the Lord"?

I understand the story better now than when I was I kid, but I still have the feeling that the foolish virgins were framed.

Not all endings are bad.

We have, in fact, been given a simple code for living.

It often feels like a rhetorical game, this question of what belongs to God.