Reformed, Hopeful, Always Reforming
A good friend of ours read scripture during the Sunday service a few weeks ago. I was affected by her very good reading——affected both cognitively and emotionally. She read well, and her voice of faith resonated with me in a sense of faithful solidarity. This person was well-selected, mind you. She’s taught biblical languages for […]
Read More The Word became flesh“And they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid . . .” (Mark 16:8) That story ended there. They were afraid? But why? Jesus was dead, now he’s alive! But that’s why they were afraid. Death then life isn’t supposed to happen. People don’t get up and leave graves. God is […]
Read More The Feast of Jesus’ Resurrection, 2018He led a protest march because the city lost what it was built to be, to call it back. They led a protest march because the city left behind its purpose, and they called it back. He poured out all he was to set right what was wrong, emptied his life so we would all […]
Read More Palm Sunday, 2018While I was in college, I asked Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff if I could sit in on his liturgy class. I knew I didn’t have time to do the homework, but still wanted to peek in on what he was teaching. He let me! And it was wonderful. We learned about Orthodox liturgy, in particular, and […]
Read More Open TableAll the cacophony: traffic in and out of the city; crying tourist babies, hushing tourist parents; troops changing the guard, marching, shuffling, barking (after all, a show of force keeps things safe); deliveries, the wheels groaning under the cargo as everybody tries to be done with work before sunset. The hucksters are hawking wares (of […]
Read More Good Friday, 2015Look at this! Branches off the trees . . . old cloaks on the road, all trampled and torn . . . donkey droppings, right up to the Temple steps . . . This all has something to do with that Jesus fellow, doesn’t it? Doesn’t he know some of us have to clean this […]
Read More Palm Sunday, 2015This may not seem like the season to talk about Resurrection—though, for Christians, isn’t it always the season to talk about Resurrection?—but I found myself in an unusual position last week. Well, unusual for me: I attended two funerals, and did not officiate at either of them. Dealing with second things first, there was the […]
Read More What Happened to Rising?This doesn’t seem like a title that I might put on a blog post. After all, I am a minister in a tradition that values literacy. The magisterial Reformation in Europe was a Reformation of learned people, educated people; instead of listening to others sing for them, instead of accepting what others told them that […]
Read More The Problem of Literate WorshipAs we are all abundantly aware—and those who are not should switch to CNN and check out Wolf Blitzer in full Earth-Shattering-Breaking-News-24/7 mode—there have been a few big and unpleasant events on the world scene this past week, the most noteworthy of which have been Israel’s commencement of a ground offensive against Hamas into the […]
Read More Bishop Chrysostom—or, How I am Learning to Stop Worrying and Trust the Holy SpiritNothing New Under the Sun Church participation is in decline. It’s certainly not a new story. The old narrative (at least in some circles) was that we were finally feeling the aftershock of the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy of the 1920’s and 30’s. Mainline churches offered a watered down “liberal” theology some argued. The contention was that […]
Read More The Heart of Worship