In the Lectionary

I’ve never been totally honest about baptismal vows. I bet Joshua would have been.

Deborah, a wise woman who sat.

Jesus' simple summary of the law is actually complex.

I was in Cuba this summer on a mission trip, when our host pastor, Héctor Méndez, approached me, his face grave and drawn. “They have attacked a Presbyterian hospital and school in Pakistan,” he said, “and people have been killed.”

If you are ever invited to a gala event where a constitutional monarch is present, you will be told to wear a dark suit or a formal dress—no pants suits for women, no leisure suits for men. Apparently the poor guy in the parable of the wedding banquet didn’t read the small print on his invitation.

We cannot return to a pre-calf existence when the fullness of God could be seen more clearly.

Jesus offers a stick in his listeners' eye.

Power always protects itself.

Matthew's story is terrible news. It is also the truth that will make us free.

When I was a kid growing up in the Willamette Valley, local teenagers and migrant laborers would go out together into the strawberry fields to help with the harvest. This parable, with its setting in the vineyard, describes the emotions of us workers—we wanted a fair wage for a fair day’s work.

Jesus knew forgiveness would always need special emphasis.

How do the blessed feel when they think of the damned?

The Hebrew midwives were poised to receive the future that God had promised.

Fear rules the emotions of Joseph’s brothers and strikes the hearts of Jesus’ disciples.

The first covenant holds forever.

"Have you understood all this?" They said yes. God must still be laughing.

One is not born a Christian; one becomes a Christian. This reminds me of my three-year-old friend Grace.

In my youth I thought: God asked what of Abraham? Is this the God who I am supposed to worship?

A mother and child wander in the unknown—that place where fears overtake us.