24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, RCL)

It got stolen, and I got scared.

What does it mean to have a Savior?

Jesus' lesson in large-hearted theology

Isaiah’s suffering servant plays on our own ambivalent ideas about violence, passivity, and retribution.

We can ignore the Satan stuff, or we can address it.

How do we retool after we speak irreverently or caustically?

You've got to feel bad for Peter.

In the late 70s, two friends of mine housesat for the poet James Merrill—and got out his Ouija board.

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 26:14–27:66; Philippians 2:5–11

Nevertheless, I think that John’s prologue has much more to say. In speaking about this Word become flesh, it also speaks powerfully to us about what it means to be human. Over the years, I kept returning to a few verses that changed the way that I saw the entire prologue and which consequently changed my entire theology.

Each time I read these words from the beginning of Proverbs, I can't stop thinking about how much I would like to hear a child read them in worship.

James reminds us of the duplicity of language, like a matchstick dropped by singed fingers that leaves behind charred acres. The deception of language is that we believe it is innocent.

The Bible's images for God must be taken in an analogical sense. Yet the Bible exhibits no anxiety about using them.