Our news feeds have been filled with depressing stories lately of leaders who demonstrate marked lack of principle in their quest to keep or regain power or popularity or position. I suppose that’s why I was so shocked to read about a tremendous act of leadership last week by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Facing [Read More…]
Never Alone
May 21, 2017 by Leave a Comment
John 14:15-21 In the summer of 1984, everyone I knew was preoccupied with the blockbuster summer movie: Ghostbusters. In addition to sporting a very catchy theme song, the movie was the hilarious story of three unemployed paranormal psychology professors starting a business to help people deal with ghosts or spirits causing problems in their lives. [Read More…]
Sad, Scared, and Stingy
May 14, 2017 by Leave a Comment
John 14:1-14 While other girls in my elementary school wore their brownie uniforms: jumpers with tall knee socks and a wide sash across the chest with various patches affixed to it, and attended meetings with the older Girls Scouts on Tuesday afternoons, I instead went to AWANA on Thursday nights. Those of you who grew [Read More…]
Caring for Creation: Idea or Action?
May 9, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Recently The Riverside Church announced our intention to divest our $140 million endowment over the next five years from the Carbon Underground 200 — the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies. This decision was the culmination of a careful and intentional two-year process of deliberation and communal discernment. This all sounds so virtuous, but [Read More…]
Signs of Life: Clue
April 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Luke 24:13-35 Today is the third Sunday of Easter, a whole season celebrating resurrection. It makes sense that this would require a whole season, not just one day, since getting our minds and our hearts around the reality of new life is rather counter-intuitive for us. We’re used to endings and decay and death. Some [Read More…]
Signs of Life
April 23, 2017 by Leave a Comment
John 21:1-19 What are you supposed to do after resurrection? I mean, really. What are you supposed to do after everything you know about life changes? We’re one week away from resurrection, so it’s natural to ask the same question the disciples were asking each other. Now what? Well, they didn’t know. They didn’t know [Read More…]
This is Only the Beginning of Resurrection
April 18, 2017 by Leave a Comment
My Facebook feed tells me that a lot of people I know and love spent a significant part of Easter day working to capture cute pictures of their children in various Easter-related poses. Looking back through old family photo albums, in fact, it seems I have also been guilty of dressing my progeny in uncomfortable [Read More…]
A Matter of Life and Death
April 16, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Matthew 28:1-10 Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! In America and Great Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a little-known but thriving community of professionals known as “the resurrectionists.” With the advent of modern medical schools, the study of human anatomy and medicine required actual human bodies be available for dissection [Read More…]
Goodbyes: A Meditation for Maundy Thursday
April 13, 2017 by Leave a Comment
I think that one of the hardest and most beautiful parts of being human is saying goodbye. All of us, it doesn’t matter who you are, say goodbye to dreams and expectations we’ve held for our lives…goodbye to places that hold meaning and ground us…and, goodbye to people we love. When we say goodbye, whatever [Read More…]
Everything Must Change: Protest
April 9, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Matthew 21:1-11 Try to imagine what it was like that day. The weather hadn’t started to get oppressively hot in the desert yet; the air was still cool, especially at night. And up there on the Mount of Olives, a long ridge running beside Jerusalem and looking over into the city, there was a breeze [Read More…]
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