15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, RCL)

The Totentatz window was created soon after the Shoah but with no reference to the city's murdered Jews. Two of them were my grandparents.

Theology and advertising share the same root.

Christians didn’t baptize Aldo Leopold’s land ethic after the fact. They got there years before his work.

I have come to realize how mysterious a thing a seed is.

Two recent books testify to the difficult but hopeful work of forgiving in the most trying circumstances.

Does the divine expression, the word, really work? Does it make a difference in our lives and in the world?

My yearning for the difference-making word drew me to James Crockett’s work in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Jesus' parable presents not differences between people but different kinds of terrain within each of us.

"It is by being in solidarity with sinners that Jesus brings about reconciliation. This is not a picture of Jesus that churches often emphasize."

In this week’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says to the people,

Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No... Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No.

No.

While Christian scholars have long questioned body-soul dualism, it remains common in church circles. This may finally be changing.

I shared today in church a few of parables from Matthew 13: mustard seed, yeast, treasure, pearl. I tried to just tell them as stories: very little editorial commentary or explanation, just the stories.

At this year's great Vigil of Easter, our congregation welcomed four new adult members: three women and one of their husbands.

Of all the Gospel writers, Matthew has his eye most fixed upon the leadership of the church.

When a seed is snapped up by a bird of the air, the seed’s journey isn’t necessarily over.

Jacob and Esau are identified by their relationship with each other.

Disconnectedness is the greatest threat to our spiritual security.