30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, RCL)

After enduring Job's calamities, his howling laments, the speeches of his "friends," a hymn to wisdom as an entr'acte, Job's plea of innocence, an awkward interruption by Elihu, and then four chapters of the LORD speaking from the whirlwind, we finally arrive at the 42nd and last chapter of Job.

We discover that no one much agrees what it means. 

New daughters and sons do not take the place of the lost ones. As a conclusion to the story of Job, this will not do.

Social microhistories can capture big ideas. I’d like to write one on pickles, which are as fundamental to civilization as anything in Chesterton’s pockets.

Academics may find no theological breakthrough in Brian McLaren's latest book, but the ones who care about church life may still do a double take.

On a recent afternoon, I skimmed from page to page in the newspaper, glancing at headlines about environmental deregulation, an increase in the state murder rate, schools that aren’t educating their students, massacres in Syria and other grim realities. My reaction? I’m embarrassed to confess: “Not my problem, not my problem, not my problem, and not my problem.” Then I turned to the sports section.

After slogging through 41 chapters of misery and god-awful suffering, Job’s world is suddenly put right again in just six verses.

Late in life, my mother confessed that she never enjoyed cooking. "But," she said, "I did take satisfaction in serving simple meals to my family." Well, there's no such thing as a simple meal anymore.

We see in Bartimaeus's story the same basic elements that are present in the calling of Jesus’ first disciples.

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.

Some 50 years ago, Merton warned us about what can happen when “all words have become alike.”