Sunday's Coming Premium

The prayers of the people call us. When we answer, we invite the possibility that it is we who will be poor, hungry, sick, and in prison.

Luke grounds the resurrection narrative in tangible details: the rock-hewn tomb, the linen cloth, the heavy stone, the fragrant spices. The reader can imagine the place and time. Then things fall off the map.

In this week’s Gospel reading, many people praise Jesus’ teaching—until he claims that he is the fulfillment of the scripture he reads. It is difficult for American Christians to grasp how shocking Jesus’ announcement is to a first-century synagogue.

The writer of Luke may be challenging his readers to accept even those whom the oppressed might reject, but Paul reminds us to act with love in all things.

Perhaps normal people no longer assume that church is part of what it means to be normal. Or perhaps the idea of a normal center was flawed all along.

Are the rest of us so different from our brothers and sisters in Libya or in Charleston? Are they heroes with whom we can never identify?

My brother is nine and I am ten. Wood already obeys his hands when he asks it gently to work with him.

Not every ailment can be fixed—or should be. Atul Gawande thinks we need to talk about this.

My dad's descent into depression

It's no surprise that Nicodemus goes home befuddled. If discipleship doesn't come with some confusion, it probably isn't Jesus you're following.

For Andrew Elphinstone, human selfishness and violence are not evidence of a world gone wrong. They show a person ripe for transformation.

If temptation were all about blatant wrongdoing, it would be far easier to avoid.

I don't much like the days and weeks after Christmas. Christmas takes so long to get here, with preparations and anticipation building from mid-November on. And then, sometime during the day of December 25, it all collapses.

The frankincense gift needs to be taped back together. So does the stable wall.

The thing about serving as a prophet is that you are forever stuck between what God wants and what the people want.

Each week my church includes a prayer for the families of American soldiers who have died. As the names are read, I try to hold them in prayer. But I have wrestled with these prayers.

For many early Chris­tians, only at the moment of Jesus' baptism was he suddenly overwhelmed by the power of divinity.