Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A, RCL)

For now, anyway. After our discernment together, I consider this a success.

Paul echoes Jesus’ prayer for his disciples: that they may be one.

If God is our salvation and stronghold, why are we just as vulnerable as anyone else?

As my father was dying, I saw God’s radiant face more clearly.

“If the gospel isn’t good news to the women in the passage, is it still good news?”

Cultivating a shared Christian imagination

Why do we give Matthew 4:23 short shrift?

Jesus’ call is less about what we leave behind than our eager response to follow him as everyday people.

Not just suffering

The church is made of people. But they need a home.

The church at Corinth had many problems. Some simple kindness would have helped.

There was certainly nothing wrong with doing what I did before.

Matthew 4:12–23

I'm a bit of a congregational song nerd, and the church music folks I know talk about things like "sound pools" and "heart songs."

Sound pools are what Mennonite musician, teacher, and hymnologist Mary Oyer and her students (who became my teachers) describe as the body of music that a culture or community shares.

When did we stop taking church architecture seriously? Christians used to devote themselves to building projects that lasted over a hundred years. Not anymore.

What do these words from Isaiah ben Amoz mean for us?

My first instinct is to meditate on Isaiah 9 in light of its historical situation, which is bound up with the geopolitics of the late 8^th century BCE.