John

I remember a film about Doubting Thomas that I saw in Sunday school as a girl. It was one of a series that our church showed us: the Bible story was read while a sequence of tableaux ran on the screen—it was not a motion picture, really, but more like a slide show. The actors were all attractive people with earnest expressions, and their faces stayed on the screen for a long time while the text was read. Sometimes the camera would zoom in, so that we could get a really good, long look at a particularly earnest expression.

I think I would find it all a bit too much if I were to view it today. But this was a long time ago.

I remember Thomas's face.

The risen Christ does not rebuke Mary for her error. He seems rather to enjoy the occasion of her surprise.

“There is the danger of protecting ourselves from God by striving to be passive. The ‘I’ is very active in its attempt to surrender.”

Our pastor had an affair and confessed it in his sermon. He stood up in front of the church and let the gathered members know that he had succumbed to temptation, but he was ready to just "move on." 

Our pastor had an affair and confessed it in his sermon. He stood up in front of the church and let the gathered members know that he had succumbed to temptation, but he was ready to just "move on." 

There must have been some Lutherans sitting in that conference room when the Revised Common Lectionary was birthed. That is the only explanation that I can come up with for Ephesians 2:1-10 having a role on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B.

Jesus and Nicodemus might as well be speaking different languages. Jesus speaks of birth from above; Nicodemus is befuddled. Jesus speaks of the spirit as wind blowing where it will; Nicodemus wonders how this can be. They are like a creationist and a paleontologist comparing notes on fossils--they simply can't fathom each other. Their organizing assumptions are too different.

Here's when we sense that Nicodemus begins to understand what Jesus is saying: when Jesus reinterprets the story of Israel in the wilderness, drawing from the language that has oriented Nicodemus's life and thought. It doesn't seem likely, after all, that the series of puzzling metaphors Jesus begins with would push Nicodemus to understanding. But something clearly does.

To build stronger communities, we need to get in the habit of recognizing what undergirds our relationships. We can't afford to take it for granted.

DeMarco experienced a lot of life before he came to care for his mother, and he will likely experience more when his time as caregiver ends. Yet I think of John 15:13.

I often feel that my whole time in ministry has been one when the word of the Lord is rare and visions not widespread.

The symbol of the fish resounds throughout scripture, and it splashes well beyond the pages.

For Jesus, unity among his disciples is an instrument of the evangel itself. Presbyterians have a great evangelical opportunity to show a fractured world that it is possible for people to disagree and yet remain in fellowship.

I love interfaith gatherings, but I would never invite Stephen.

This week is the Second Sunday of Easter, aka "low Sunday." There is in the life of a church a movement and momentum toward Easter Sunday, and then inevitably a scattering, a rest after the intensity. And yet the gospel lesson does wrestle with the implications of belief, unbelief and doubt.