grace

I can still smell the wet canvas and sawdust of my father's revivals. He believed that any self-respecting revival was held in a tent.

It’s hard to deny these little echoes of the synoptics which John reshapes for his own dramatic purposes. It seems narratively wrong for Jesus to cleanse the temple at the beginning of his ministry rather than at the climactic end. It makes more sense if one hears Luke in the background ever so slightly—Jesus’ claiming of the temple as his father’s house and his identity as the Son. Here in John, he has just performed a miracle at his mother’s behest, bringing spirit into the most fleshly event of human life. Now he goes to what is supposedly a spiritual place and finds only flesh. No wonder he is annoyed.

There is a black lab—a student's guide dog—lying on the floor during chapel. As I preach, I wonder what the dog is thinking.

I’ve never seen a film that translates grace to the screen like Babette’s Feast. As one of the rare films that focuses on the lined and battered faces of real people Babette’s Feast challenges viewers to love real life. The film embraces God’s love for the embodied, the ordinary and the value of the extraordinary, and a love that wastes nothing.

Late last week, President Obama ordered a review of the specifics as to how the death penalty is administered at the state level. This came in response to the sad episode in which Clayton Lockett, convicted for the horrific murder of Stephanie Neiman, died of an apparent heart attack shortly after a botched lethal injection.

The administration’s step is a good one, but it’s hardly bold or brave.

Flannery O’Connor never wrote just for herself, God, and an elite group of peers. She was eager for an audience with ears to hear about grace.

O'Connor's artistic signature involved a severity of image, dark-as-night humor, and a relentless preoccupation with sacramental violence.

Here's some good news: despite our short collective attention span, despite the fiscal-cliff debacle dominating the headlines shortly after the Newtown shooting, the U.S. scourge of gun violence is still part of the national conversation.

Now, every time I hear a public official mention Newtown and Aurora but not Chicago—which experienced a startling spike in gun homicides in 2012, mostly in poor, black neighborhoods—I'm ashamed at the implication that some killings deserve more shock and outrage than others. Still, whatever it takes to motivate people to take on the pro-gun lobby, I'm grateful to see it happening.

Since childhood, I've been uncomfortable with the idea that accepting Jesus is an automatic ticket to heaven—and with the reverse idea.

Preachers and teachers are really missing those summer days when we got to preach on wonderful parables about mustard seeds and loaves of yeast bread. Now it's judgment-parable season, and many of us wish we were on vacation.

The resources for faith formation have grown in recent decades, yet the task remains elusive. After all, everything the church does is formative—and one can never predict how formation will happen.

Luke 12:32-40

Our armor always loses because our weapons are consistently one step ahead of our protection.