Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year 2, NL)

The scribe’s question to Jesus is not merely an academic exercise.

“Anyone who thinks he knows the orthodox consensus can always be shown to be wrong,” says David Bentley Hart.

If Jesus is with the other guy, how can he be with us?

What preacher does not like to gnaw a theological bone?

It is the nature of a creature—or toy, or movie franchise—to outgrow its context and move on.

Penny embodies the kind of love that holds onto hope amid suffering, redemption amid pain, and forgiveness amid hurt.

Being religious is not about following rules. It's more like dancing.

In 1947, Langston Hughes published the poem "Luck." It could be read as an ode to love. It could be read at weddings along with 1 Corinthians 13, the biblical ode to love. But that would miss the point of both the poem and the scripture. 

The writer of Luke may be challenging his readers to accept even those whom the oppressed might reject, but Paul reminds us to act with love in all things.

In March 1933, the United States stood on the brink of ruin. Twenty-five percent of the population was unemployed; many people had not worked for several years. The situation was even worse in cities with major industries, where unemployment surpassed the national average.

Yet the real worry of the era cannot be captured by statistics alone. 

My dad's descent into depression

For Andrew Elphinstone, human selfishness and violence are not evidence of a world gone wrong. They show a person ripe for transformation.

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.

To the Ephesians and Philippians, to the Galatians and anyone who would listen, Paul’s message was the same.

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.”

"Love never ends,” St. Paul writes in the lesson we read from 1 Corinthians 13. Or, put more positively, “love abides.” What does that really mean—to say that “love abides”? Or, indeed, what possible sense could it make to say this in a world in which the truth so clearly seems to be that love quite often does not abide?