This question was making the rounds on Facebook on July 4: if selling a wedding cake to a gay couple makes a ‘Christian’ a participant in gay marriage, does selling a gun to someone make a Christian a participant in a murder? There are large holes in this comparison, but despite that I like it, because I am so sick of hearing of ‘traditional Christian  marriage’, as if Christianity has a basic definition of marriage, with Jesus’ stamp of approval... Read more

And they took offense at him (Mark 6:3) Mark is talking about Jesus here.  And the passage begins with the detail that Jesus has just returned home, after healing the woman who has been bleeding for many years and the rabbi’s daughter, whom many thought was dead.  Now he’s in his home town synagogue, and they are really pissed.  How could a fellow they have known since he was a scrape-kneed kid with missing front teeth do such things, and... Read more

Still in the boat that had weathered the storm at sea, Jesus reached shore, and a desperate preacher came and fell at his feet, asking for help – Save My Daughter, cried the preacher, in pain, in fear, in terror of the loss he was facing.  Jesus, as he turned to go with him, was interrupted by a desperate woman, who had been bleeding for years. It could be the story of Mother Emanuel AME Church, a weathered ship that... Read more

When did faith become separated from fear?  When, instead, did faith become forged into medals:  courage, valor, success? Was it because we couldn’t bear to look at fear that closely or that often, yet we wanted to know faith familiarly, that we keep them apart so much, in our seeking after God? White knuckle fear:  it’s the stuff of action movies, not stories about faith.  We like stories where we beat fear, where we outsmart it, get the best of... Read more

Seeds are a focal image for Jesus, an icon of the kingdom of God. It was seeds that invented sex, in the course of evolutionary life.  Planting, sowing, tending, growing —  all of these are Jesus’ images for the work of bringing the kingdom to fullness on earth.  At times he spoke about the kingdom as good seed growing among weeds, as seed growing in all kinds of inhospitable places, as a good and fruitful tree, as an unfruitful tree... Read more

According to Webster’s Dictionary, blasphemy is great disrespect shown to God or to something holy.  Wikipedia defines blasphemy more unforgettably, more damningly, as the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for a god or gods, to religious or holy persons or things, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. But the full reviling given to the word comes from the Ten Commandments, which are the moral foundation of Judaism and Christianity, and the highest law in... Read more

According to John:  Jesus, in many speeches, prepares those he loves for his impending departure by naming the things he will leave behind – his legacy.   Peace I leave with you, he says, on Easter Day and often after.  His love, hope, joy.  These are an inheritance he transmits.   Repeatedly, he names The Truth as what he lives in always, as what he gives to them and as what the Advocate (the Spirit) will give them always. The Truth, Jesus... Read more

There’s really no other way to do this:  to rise into eternal life, to transcend the limits of mortality, to move forward into time beyond time:  than to let go. For half the weeks in the season of Easter Jesus has been preparing to let go – with hard-to-fathom words about abiding in one another and being fruitful in a lasting way – with talk about ‘after’, meaning after he is gone. It comes to this, then:  saying goodbye. If... Read more

For centuries upon centuries, a bride was something a man bought, or his father bought for him.  A ‘brideprice’ was agreed upon with the woman’s father.  A formal negotiation was held.   And other things were often included along with the woman who was to become the bride:  a few coins would accompany the bride if the father were poor.  If the family was prosperous, cattle were often included.  And if wealthy, land and gold would be agreed upon.  Cattle and... Read more

. . . . I am the true vine, and my Father is the Vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. . . . Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit . . . . (John 15) What shall we make of Bruce Jenner?  He has produced six children, the fruitfulness Christians cherish most, for which there is a public... Read more