Jesus’ authority came from whores and crooks, from a thief on the cross next door. Do you remember what all those poor and struggling folk, the ones on the outside, said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. “He taught with authority.”   more »

A pastor tells the story of a parishioner who complains because a teenager has taken Communion before completing Confirmation class. “That youth doesn’t deserve to take Communion yet! I had to wait!,” says the elderly parishioner. The pastor replies, “I don’t think the disciples passed through Confirmation class before celebrating their last supper with Jesus.”   more »

Well maybe forgiveness is a gateway characteristic of the Christian life. If you are forgiving others, maybe before too long that’s not enough, and you start being more compassionate. Then the next thing you know you are experimenting with gentleness, and before too long you are hopelessly addicted to caring for the oppressed and making peace. You never know what just might happen when you start with forgiveness, the dangerous places it might lead us. We might end up being the Body of Christ.   more »

Now we may need to pick up our crosses in a thousand of little ways when we risk following Jesus and believing in the God he believed in. But there are a thousand little resurrections waiting for us.   more »

We learned in that story we read from Matthew’s gospel at the beginning of today’s service, that what was important to Jesus was not who he was but who we are, who we are together.   more »

Every time I see shalom in action, whether in the Hebrew scriptures, in family gatherings around a death, or in a vigil thrown together in four days, I’m humbled and awestruck at the power of God to offer life in the midst of death, to bring healing out of injury, to call forth order out of disarray, to make strength out of weakness.   more »

He is always doing this sort of thing, urging us on, outside the lines, a little further. You have heard it said, but I say unto you…! That ancient law was OK, as far as it went, but you need to go further, push out beyond the margins, out from the secure ground of shore and shale, out into the deeps. Go down. Love your neighbour, love those who love you. OK. But the call of the gospel takes you into the deeps – to: love your enemies. Have no enemies.   more »

Jesus isn’t just spouting off about life in some ideal and unattainable world. He’s expecting what he says about God’s Kingdom to take root in our lives and produce a harvest. He expects, he really believes our lives can start looking like his, with all the love and mercy and compassion and forgiveness and peace and devotion to God that we see in his life. He believes the same Spirit that was with him is with us, and that we can do this thing.   more »

What I think the gospel tells us about the message of Jesus is that we are called to love God and love each other. Make peace. Work for reconciliation. Welcome the stranger and invite the marginalized into the center of things. Forgive each other. Cross boundaries and borders. Reject war and violence. Comfort the sorrowing. Bring hope. Care more about God and others than our possessions and pension plans. Give to those who ask. Turn the other cheek. Don’t substitute lust for love. Treat everyone fairly, just like you want to be treated fairly. Tend to the needy first. Set the oppressed free. Visit the prisoner and lonely and the sick. Look for what is eternal. Believe that God is a god of life, not a god of death. Make yourself more vulnerable, so others can be less vulnerable. Remember that in God’s eyes the last are first and the first last, and that God is planning on changing this world through people like us. That is not a message we need to be ashamed of, because it is the message of Jesus, that he has entrusted to us.   more »

It says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that people hooped and hollered when Jesus was done because they had never heard anything like it, not from any of the priests, or Pharisees, or anyone else. Maybe they saw it as not some religious treatise Jesus was trying to put on them, but as his testimony to his faith.   more »

What if we, instead of looking at all these things going on in the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus piling up one impossible thing after another, began to see them as a whole, as all connected to one another? For example, maybe it’s easier to love our enemy if we aren’t so worried about what we are going to eat or wear. Or maybe Jesus is saying it’s easier to not worry about what we are going to eat or wear when our minds are focused on issues like forgiveness and reconciliation.   more »

Here’s why we need the church, though, in spite of all of its failings. It is where we get to be prophets, proclaim together God’s word. And once we begin to realize that we all have a voice, we all have a word from God--women and men, poor and rich, gay and straight, young and old, black and white, clergy and lay–and that all of us are prophets. Maybe we can learn enough from each other to help the church be better than it is.   more »

With the economy sinking and poverty in the county, country, and world rising, I felt that poverty was an issue I was called to understand better. I contacted as many local churches as I could, and compiled a list of poverty-related ministries at the churches. Even though not everyone replied, I still got an impressive list.   more »

For me, the realization and understanding of the role that a church can play in a community, as a powerfully good force, is almost an entire turn around. I think in this country and probably every where in the world, the church is central to the people and it would be impossible to try to work with any group of people with out its help and still with a deep suspicion of such an important part of people’s lives.   more »

And so I listened to this articulate, faith-filled woman talk about women’s experience and the Bible. The subject material engaged me like no other. For the first time, the Word had taken on flesh that looked like mine—female flesh.   more »

Look what’s happened to this little group that was hiding out in that room. The Spirit came to them, and together they were becoming the living presence of the living Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus has taken root in their lives and in their church. The Kingdom of God, the message Jesus came to proclaim, was unfolding before people’s eyes in Jerusalem.   more »

Here we are, in Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A., in 2008. Where do we miss the Lord because his very presence, or way of acting, is relegated to a “category error” that doesn’t fit our ways of seeing? Where do we miss the Lord, because we dismiss the testimony of others who bear witness to his presence in ways unfamiliar to us?   more »

Can we come out of our tombs and create more Bethanys with each other, where there is a respite from all the death and fear, where we love Jesus and try to figure out what he talking about?   more »

Peter’s story has always been the story of the church. The resurrection makes little difference if it remains this really strange ending to the story about Jesus that we really don’t know what to do with. Jesus crossed that odd threshold from death to life, but if it doesn’t lead us to cross other thresholds ourselves, Jesus becomes a one hit wonder, and there is no revolution.   more »

He mounts no stallion and wears no armor. He carries no sword nor club. Neither does he arm his male disciples, who become so afraid to be associated with him as the week wears on that they eventually flee in fear.   more »

That revolutionary message of Jesus was that we are so incredibly loved by God that we can love each other in spite of all our differences, in spite of all that awful stuff we keep below the waterline, or cover up with our fig leaves. I think kids have a hard time believing that because they don’t see all that many adults who really believe it.   more »

Barreling straight through generational prejudices was Jesus’ way. On this hot day, his basic need for a cup of water leads to surprising encounters with surprising consequences. He treats the woman as a person with legitimate ideas, thoughts, and perspectives.   more »

But that is the challenge for the church. Are we that willing to be intentional about being the church, or what we often call these days a community of faith? Are we willing to offer ourselves as living sacrifices not only to God, but to each other, to help each other be more intentionally Christian? Are we willing to bring our gifts, our insights, our curiosity, our questions, our answers, to each other, and build a community together that helps us all become more intentionally Christian?   more »

Jesus didn’t go into the wilderness to contemplate Herod’s spiritual condition, or to repent the sins of Caesar or confess the moral flaws of the Roman Empire. Jesus went into the wilderness to examine the real Jesus – the good and the bad in Himself – and to bring that out on the table for the life that lay ahead.   more »

But none of us would be here today if we weren’t in the process of hearing God speak to us through this same Jesus who walked up the mountain with his disciples to retreat and this same Christ before whom we are often astounded and undone. None of us would be here today if something within us wasn’t compelling us to listen to him. Instead, we would be reading our Sunday paper, or sleeping in, or catching up on our weekday work.   more »

Nowhere is there a mention of what it was like for Jesus to be thrown out of his hometown, how that was for his family—were they reviled? Did they disagree with his preaching that day in the synagogue? Did they wish he would “tone it down” for his own sake? Once John was arrested, did they ask themselves, “Can’t Jesus learn something from John’s experience about what happens when you say too much?”   more »

Their response was maybe the Baptizer was saying God offered Jesus to us not as a sacrificial victim but as a gift showing us a new way of living. Jesus, they said, might not be the one that sin was supposed to be piled on, but the one who showed us how to get out from under the pile of sin.   more »

Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration--Part 1   more »

Part 2 of the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration   more »

PArt 3 of the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration   more »

Who is more vulnerable than illegal immigrants? What bruised reed is easier to crush than that one? Yet so many of these presidential candidates, who are vying for the title of most Christian Presidential candidate ever, are not only willing to crush this bruised reed but they want to yank it out of the soil, stomp on it, burn it, and make sure they have television crews recording every minute so they can make a commercial out of it.   more »

Jesus believed, though, that you couldn’t get to a new ends without a new means. That’s why his concerns weren’t judgment and destruction, but healing and compassion. The best way to deal with empire was not to play its own game of violence and destruction, but to challenge it with love and sacrifice, words not really in John’s vocabulary.   more »

While baptism is a very individual act, it is also a very communal act. Baptism is a public witness, a confession shared with other pilgrims and seekers of the Way. We are baptized into community–this is the context for our confession that ‘Jesus is Lord.’ We work out our salvation with others working out theirs, finding hope, strength, comfort, and challenge within the body of Christ.   more »

Did you know, for example, that the word ‘taken’ in this verse could also be translated ‘swept away?’ If this verse were translated this way, “two men working in the field–one swept away, the other left behind, two women grinding mill–one swept away, the other left behind,” suddenly being left behind is a good thing.   more »

Christ the King Sunday encourages us to go into Christmas with our eyes and hearts a bit more open to the implications of the story, implications that go far beyond a manger and shepherds in Bethlehem, to soldiers and a bloody execution ground on a hill outside of Jerusalem. It wasn’t some weird turn of events that caused the baby to grow up and die on a cross. The way he lived set him on that course, and it’s a way he has called us to follow.   more »

Our principle task in Spiritual Direction right now is what I one day nicknamed “the Drano process”–unclogging places of the heart that need healing and clearness so that I can more authentically follow the Living One to whom I have committed my life.   more »

But, they were able to cross all those gulfs between them, and acknowledge each other as sister and brother in Jesus Christ. The call to follow Jesus was a call to a changed life. They got past whether they liked each other or not, and loved each other.   more »

The prayer for mercy is a prayer of awareness and conscience. The toll collector’s confession is not about self-hatred, the “Oh, what a worm am I!” approach to God. It is about humility, about grabbing hold of grace, because it takes grace to cover all our sins.   more »

So we persist. We believe in the God Jesus believed in. We believe the creation, the world God made, was made for the good of all people and all things. But Genesis 1 and 2 quickly give way to Genesis 3, where the sin and death and injustice enter the world. From Genesis 4 on, the rest of the story is about the possibility of redemption, of the creation becoming again what God intended. That’s what the widow in the story wants.   more »

It’s kind of hard to think about Paul as a flaming radical but, at times, he was. Here is a guy who, like most of his Jewish counterparts, thought the only good gentile was a dead gentile, and gentiles thought the same about Jews. But Paul was glad to acknowledge the people who he had formerly regarded at the lowest of the low life as his brothers and sisters in Christ. That was the effect of ‘the grace that is in our Lord Jesus Christ,’ as he put it.   more »

As we celebrate World Communion Sunday, my heart is full of others doing the same. I am flooded with images of the Scattered Church—of people like Beth Peachey in Guatemala, Karla Yoder in Zambia, Susan Frances in Iraq, Liz Hamilton in Turkmenistan, or David Reese at Chicago Theological Seminary. My heart is full of images of the Gathered Church—people in nursing homes or at home battling serious health problems; people that float in and out of the church as well as those who plant themselves firmly in this soil.   more »

This story asks us how willing we are to believe in God’s future even when the present looks so desolate. The Prophet in The Revelation says hold on, even if it’s by your finger tips. Jeremiah says buy some property. The Apostle Paul asks what in all of creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus says “I am with you to the end of the age.” The future is coming and Jesus is there.   more »

You’ve got two dramatically different ways of looking at God going on here. One is about the God who keeps looking for us when we are lost, and throws a party when we are found. The second is the God who couldn’t care less.   more »

He doesn’t stop with the family, though. Jesus tells the crowd that each must carry his or her own cross. What? Only criminals carried their own crosses! Was Jesus asking the crowd to identify with such unlikely company, or was he warning them that following him could lead to lots of trouble?   more »

Can you imagine what would happen if everyone just ate at whatever table they wanted in the school cafeteria? That’s the vision Jesus has for us, chaos in the lunchroom   more »

And we too can rejoice. Because this story isn’t just about a healing. And it isn’t simply about reclaiming the real meaning of the sabbath, although recognizing and attending to human need is a very important part of sabbath to Jesus. No, this story is about the radical way Jesus interacted with one of the most marginalized people of his day – a woman – and the freedom implied by his actions.   more »

He said the key for the future of this world is for us to ‘stop obsessing about our differences.’   more »

When those first spirit filled followers hit the streets of Jerusalem they were looking to build a new community, a new way of living with each other in this world that would bear witness to the Jesus who was alive again. You can only build the new community of Jesus Christ with other people. Community building is a group activity.   more »

I am still amazed that some of the most Biblically literate people have no idea what the Kingdom of God is. It was the most important thing Jesus talked about. Beginning, middle, and end, the ministry of Jesus was all about the Kingdom of God. But since most Christians in this country have never even heard of the concept, the best most can do is say it must have something to do with heaven.   more »

These are notes from the fourth and final session of the 1 Thessalonians Bible Study held at Peace Commjunity Church on May 17, 2007   more »

This is the third session of the ! Thessalonians Bilbe Study which was held at Peace Community Church on May 16, 2007   more »

God invites Job to rediscover the Holy One’s presence and grace—not by beating his fists on the doors of heaven, not by looking up to some divine throne in the skies, but by looking out to Creation itself, and there, rediscovering the Creator. The mystics and contemplatives through the ages have had it right.   more »

Here are notes from the second session of the 1Thessalonians Bible Study held at PCC on May 2, 2007   more »

All these years later. All these books. All these sermons. All these hot debates and we are still where those folk in Thessalonica were. We are trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus when you’re living in the empire.   more »

I just don’t think the “how” of creation is the point of Genesis 1, or Genesis 2–the second creation story. The first three chapters of Genesis set up the major themes of the Bible: relationship, exile, and redemption. They help us understand the “what” and “wherefore” of the story of our lives. That is infinitely more valuable to me than exactly how old the earth or the cosmos may be.   more »

Here are notes from the first session of the First Thessalonians Bible Study held at Peace Community Church.   more »

But that’s one of the mysteries of the resurrection. You never know where this life in Jesus Christ is going to lead you. It’s mystery all. But if that mystery is leading us toward life, then we are headed in the right direction.   more »

That’s why Jesus didn’t get hung up by nationality, race, gender, economic status, religious practice, or lack thereof. All those walls, Jesus showed us, wall us off from each other. They are walls erected to keep compassion at bay. But Jesus busted down the walls, he was always rolling away stones of death.   more »

And suddenly, a cold chill passed through me and I was afraid. Afraid for him. For us. For me. Because I knew the fervor of this crowd could just as easily turn against Jesus as for him. These people didn’t want justice; they wanted to be right.   more »

Mary was simply trying to find a way to respond to Jesus and what he meant in her life. She was grateful to this man who had shown her a path to God she had never seen before, and the man who had raised her brother from the dead. And she didn’t care what anybody in the room thought about what she was doing.   more »

Think about a God who rummages through all the piles, sweeps up the dust and dog hair in all the corners, goes though the trash, looks under all the cushions for one coin. Maybe that’s a God who knows something about how a coin or two can determine if a family is going to make it a while longer or not.   more »

When those evangelists were going out and calling others to be followers of Jesus, it wasn’t just so things could be better for his followers. It wasn’t lets wash them off and get them cleaned-up for heaven. They were looking for people who wanted to build a church, that would look Herod in the eye, and say, “Come after us. But until you get us, we are going to to bring healing and life to this world, just like our Savior Jesus did.”   more »

Somehow, the survival of the human race seems to me to be a reasonable academic subject   more »

Where we do start, I believe, is realizing that what Jesus is saying here isn’t some kind of advanced section on the SAT (Spirituality Aptitude Test). He’s not suggesting loving your enemies, blessing those who curse you, turning the other cheek, is a spiritual goal that only a few can hope to attain. Rather, he’s telling us it’s the only way things are going to get better for us and for this world and we need to start doing it yesterday.   more »

The thing about the gospel is that if you preach it without doing anything, it’s just crazy talk. Idle foolishness. In order to preach the gospel, I have to live the gospel.   more »

You don’t have to read too much of the story to realize the disciples just didn’t get Jesus. They couldn’t figure out most of what he was about, and the parts they could figure out, they didn’t like. His message was too radical, too inclusive, too contrary to their understanding of proper religion. They argued with Jesus. They contradicted him. Their lack of faith has become legend. They deserted him when he needed them most. But from the time they threw down their nets, left their tax collection booths behind, found Jesus along the way and followed him, to that hillside where the Risen Jesus commissioned them, they were disciples.   more »

The final lesson of his story is self-evident. It is a lesson that Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr., taught us so well—that violence only begets more violence (John 18:36, Luke 23:49-51). The cycle of blame and retribution spins farther and farther out of control, descending into deeper and deeper darkness. It is in that darkness that the story of Samson ends.   more »

When Jesus said he came to set the oppressed free, there surely is a call there for his followers to challenge torture, harassment, prejudice, sexism, homophobia, violations of civil and human rights. But what are the more private oppressions we experience, the things that hold us down, that keep us imprisoned? Jesus is interested in all these things and interested in all kinds of freedom.   more »

Fundamental to King’s life and faith was to meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus. The stands King took against social injustice, his willingness to love his own enemies, were the fruit of his faith   more »