John

The disciples are afraid, so they lock their doors. I do the same.

The disciples are afraid, so they lock their doors. I do the same.

Psalm 51 does not let any of us off the hook—not the progressives, the evangelicals, or the feel-good agnostics.

This week the lectionary offers foundational verses of our faith. But the faith cannot live on a couple verses alone.

Look, people are sinking under the waters. Here in this wilderness, people are perishing.

Look, people are sinking under the waters. Here in this wilderness, people are perishing.

In the synoptic accounts of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus is being provocative. In John, he is provoked.

Whether we choose to believe it or not, we human beings are embodied creatures. There have been many times throughout the history of philosophy and religion when great thinkers have tried to minimize or deny the physicality of human existence. Simple phrases such as “mind over matter” and biblical passages such as 1 Corinthians 9:27, “but I punish my body and enslave it,” have contributed to the misleading belief that we are at our best as human beings when some spiritual core that is separate from our physical nature governs our lives.

John the Baptist baptized Jesus of Nazareth. The synoptic Gospels all say so, and the kerygma in Acts connects the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with that baptism. But although Mark seems to find it quite right that Jesus should have been among those who heeded John’s preaching, all the other evangelists seem discomfited by the suggestion that Jesus was somehow a disciple of this other preacher.

How could the disciples' hearts not be troubled?