22 April 2012
There is no definitive conclusion of the Gospel accounts after Jesus’ resurrection. The tales of seeing Jesus alive seem to unlock hopes and promises of revelations to come, come pouring out. The symbol of Easter is not an empty tomb, but a wide door opening on a sunrise. It is like going out early on an Ithaca morning in late April or early May and having the fresh spring air hit our face and chill our nostrils. There is still a hint of winter around, but we know what is coming.
15 April 2012
The Gospel reminds us we don’t have all the answers, and never will on this earth. We don’t need them and neither did Thomas. Struggling over all the specifics of God’s call does not disqualify us from receiving and sharing God’s peace beyond all understanding. The reality of resurrection comes even through our tears of pain, dust of disillusionment, and dismay that some problems seem to linger on and on no matter what our efforts.
8 April 2012 (Easter)
The women in the Gospel story lived within a hard, narrowly restricted cultural environment. All their lives, their limitations were pounded into their heads. Then they met Jesus, a rabbi like no other, who called out of them wonderful and beautiful gifts of great potential that they never had imagined they had. For centuries, people have tried to figure out what was in these women's past and what specific sins they must have committed. The Gospels are deliberately ambiguous, and for very good reason. It is irrelevant and useless to dwell on what they were before meeting Jesus.
1 April 2012
This Sunday is truly the Sunday of all paradox, the Sunday of all irony. It is one of acclaim and humiliation, of hope and despair, of trust and betrayal, of peace and violence, of life and death. Is the donkey on which Jesus enters Jerusalem, a beast symbolizing reconciliation and justice to all people and a sign of forgiveness, or is the donkey the bearer of the triumphant and victorious king over all enemies, and the future imperial ruler over all nations?
25 March 2012
The closer we come to Holy Week, the more tense and anxious the disciples become. They cannot comprehend what is coming, but change is certainly in the air and whatever the future holds, they sense it will be decidedly different. In today’s Gospel some Gentiles come to Philip and Andrew, seeking after Jesus. It becomes the prelude for Jesus again emphasizing his impending death and alluding to a resurrection of new life, as well as telling future disciples that they will be the ones to introduce the Gospel to the wider gentile world. The resurrection in effect will inaugurate the boarder mission to the wider world outside of Judaism.
18 March 2012
The affirmation that God’s intention is always to save us, to deliver us, and to free us was consistently passed on from generation to generation. Over twelve hundred years later, early Christians were also being thrust out into an uncertain territory. They compared themselves with the tribes when they were searching for a homeland. For they, too, would need to find a new home outside of traditional Judaism, to form a new community of both former Jews and gentiles, to live and adapt to a new culture.
11 March 2012
Herod the Great had built the Temple of Jesus’ time, yet the spot had been held sacred ever since Solomon built the first Temple there nearly a thousand years earlier. By ancient tradition, more than any other place, God’s spirit seemed to rest there. It was where one expected to be brought closer to God.
4 March 2012
The story of Sarah and Abraham begins the saga of the people of Israel. They were told by God to leave their tribe and establish themselves in a new homeland to which God would lead them. God made to them an amazing and seemingly impossible promise, that through them and their descendants they would become people of blessing for all nations. They never knew for sure what God had in mind, and there were times that by all accounts God’s promises seemed empty, if not totally ridiculous.
26 February 2012
Noah was not the founder of a great nation, as those heroes in Greek or Roman mythology. Rather Noah was the one who understood that all living things were somehow connected. Hence he gathered into the ark, a pair of all the animals, and once the flood had passed, released them so that all life could begin again. Noah has become the symbol for the one who first recognized that if humanity were to survive on this earth, it wouldn’t be because we have appeased the gods from using nature as a weapon against us.
19 February 2012
The Transfiguration is a strange story, servicing both as a reflection upon the past and a vision into the future. It appears in Mathew and Luke, as well as in Mark. The story becomes the demarcation point, concluding Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and introducing the journey to Jerusalem for Jesus’ judgment and passion. In some way the Transfiguration serves a similar purpose as a fairy tale from childhood. It is a story that prepares us for the ups and downs of discipleship below the exhilaration of mountaintops, much as a fairy tale assures a child of a foundation of morality before confronting an ambivalent and complicated world.
12 February 2012
The Gospel passage of today is not quite as straightforward as it looks. The common translation says, "Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” But a more challenging, yet well-attested variant is, "Jesus, deeply disturbed as he stretched out his hand," or even "Jesus was filled with anger, as he stretched out his hand." Jesus was obviously not mad at the leper for his request. Jesus could have been angry at the sickness that bedeviled the leper. Yet much more likely, Jesus was disturbed because he knew that it was very easy for public miracles to become completely disconnected from any real meaning of the Good News.
5 February 2012
It had been a tumultuous few days. Peter had invited this new rabbi and his friends to their town. Peter just raved about him, as if he were the greatest rabbi of all. Rumors had already spread that this rabbi was some sort of miracle worker. She thought to herself, “Well, he has certainly changed my son-in-law from a fisherman and one who had never been a particularly enthusiastic or studious student of their local rabbi to one very interested in the lessons this rabbi from Nazareth taught.” Nazareth? Yes of all places Nazareth, not a place ever noted to produce learned rabbis.
29 January 2012
Across the ages and different cultures, the Gospel writers attempt to proclaim that the presence of Jesus, the Good News that Jesus entrusted to us, and the continuing power of God’s grace and love all have the wonderful potential to heal and release people from such bonds, no matter how they are classified. Our society is pretty good at analyzing things and dividing things into intricate categories. Discussions, seminars and public forums to focus and provide input are some of the things we do best. But just as discussion of a problem is not the same as overcoming or solving a problem, diagnosing an illness is not the same thing as healing it.
22 January 2012
The Gospel passage this morning seems rather jarring to our ears. Mark reports that Simon and Andrew at once dropped their nets and followed Jesus and when Jesus saw James and John, He immediately invited them to join his disciples. Throughout Mark’s Gospel, “immediately” seems to be one of Mark’s favorite adverbs. Most of us are not impulsive people. We like to be responsible and conscientious, to think things over, to weigh the consequences, and avoid making hasty decisions. It may seem to many of us as if the sons of Zebedee were rather rash or even didn’t know what Jesus was asking, and rudely deserted their father, leaving him to take care of all the nets and continue the family fishing business all on his own. They behaved as impressionable and forgetful 8 years olds rather than mature adults.
15 January 2012
Martin Luther King was thoroughly grounded in the biblical heritage. His family were people of strong faith. King understood that life as a person of faith is like a pilgrim on a journey. When God leads the way is not always clear, nor the path wide. King’s feet were never planted in one place. To understand him and his legacy, one needs to understand that King was continually listening for the word of God, and applying that to the reality around him, as he marched on.
8 January 2012
Mary and Joseph were ordinary folk, no better, no worse than most of us. Yet when God entered the picture, Mary and Joseph had to deal with a pregnancy, sudden and completely unexplainable. They were visited by people who brought amazing messages and greetings they could not possibly comprehend. Then, when things seemed to have calmed down, Joseph was warned to take Mary and Jesus and flee for their lives to a foreign land. Mary and Joseph’s future was not merely reshuffled. God used a whole new deck of cards unlike any other.