In the Lectionary

From the first instant of creation, water has played midwife to God’s creation story. After the flood, God set a rainbow in the clouds. God saw your people as slaves in Egypt, and led them to freedom through the sea. God brought their children through the Jordan to a promised land. And in the fullness of time, God sent Jesus, nurtured in the water of a womb.

Picture the old man with the baby in his arms. He stands chuckling with giddy joy, or perhaps he gazes with streaming tears on his cheeks, or is lost in transfixed wonder. He says that this is enough now, he is ready to die. He has seen salvation and he can depart in peace. But what has he seen, really?

At Christmas even the most Protestant among us can be drawn to the contemplation of Mary. It seems right to recall her humble courage, her receiving and carrying and giving birth, and her joy as she sang of the saving work of God.

Who am I? Who are you? Not the Messiah.

In my Swedish childhood, the signature image of Advent was Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

What is the need for which I need Jesus to come?

While Ezekiel’s shepherd is often on the move, any sheepherder will tell you that this is the exception rather than the rule.

Deborah, a wise woman who sat.

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

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.

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.

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

Jesus knew forgiveness would always need special emphasis.

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