Fifth Sunday in Lent (Year B, RCL)

The crucified Jesus in John's Gospel is cosmic—and magnetic.

This month in 1980, the Salvadoran archbishop was assassinated—shortly after preaching on John 12.

I believe God can make us completely over, but I also believe that this is not always necessary.

The Jesus that John shows us in this week’s Gospel text is not a religious robot, unemotionally prepared to end it all for the cause. He sees the risks, feels them.

In my younger, decidedly anti-Christian days, I did not like the way Christians asked God for mercy. It reinforced my idea that “the Christian God” was cruel and punishing. After all, if God was a loving and compassionate God, one would not have to beg for mercy. And if God was cruel and punishing but at the same time righteous and just, then human beings were clearly bad and unworthy.

This whole system of thought—shameful people and cruel God—made me want to stay far, far away from Christianity and Christian churches.

There are many people with whom I have not had an affair. Billions. There is also one man in particular.

As I read the headline yesterday, my heart began to pound and my throat closed up: “School Clerk In Georgia Persuaded Gunman To Lay Down Weapons.” This was a good story—ultimately a hopeful one—but all I could see was “school” and “gunman."

Opening the book of Hebrews is a bit like stepping into Transporter Room on the starship Enterprise. A few verses are all it takes to beam us suddenly down into an alien world filled with angels, sacrificial purification rites and Melchizedek. There’s very little about Hebrews that looks, sounds or feels familiar to 21st-century people, all of which makes dealing with this letter a challenge (and explains why so many of us avoid it).

Monastic vows sound familiar to anyone who's been to a wedding. In both marriage and celibacy, we promise to be faithful.

The psalms are poignant. They bear emotion in a way that grabs our souls. They are comprehended by the heart in a way the head can’t.

But I falter when I try to preach them.

Reconciliation requires relocation. To see the effects of our food choices, we have to get close to the land.

Among the most stimulating books I've read recently is Samuel Wells's Be Not Afraid, from which I picked up the phrase repeated several times in my current lectionary columns for the Century: "What's God up to?" This is the question that counts.

Snow can be tiresome, even deadly, but it can also be a sign of holiness and of hope.