Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A, RCL)

God’s a divine warrior but no cheap bully.

It must have astonished those gathered with Jesus to hear that they were beloved.

We can’t all be one until we believe that all people matter equally to God.

This seems to be par for the course.

The disruptive way of the Lamb

At the airport, waiting to put her on the plane, we cast our shared anxiety on God.

John 17:1–11

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

Painter Sawai Chinnawong saturates the outpouring of the Spirit with the colors Thai art traditionally associates with the holy.

In many ways, the Ascension story is too literal for our postmodern sensibilities. We know that the space station is circling the globe just above the clouds.

In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, my dad couldn't sing national songs. The Nazis saw the church's Psalter, however, as innocuous. Little did they know.

Jesus' prayer is meant to be overheard.

A few homiletical observations on Acts 1:6-14:

• Luke is always concerned about place. Now, oddly, when it comes to Jesus' ascension, he's not.

What exactly qualifies as a fiery ordeal?

I kept losing track of what I was going to say next. Yet it may have been my best sermon.