Transfixed by joy, Peter is speechless – and then he stammers, wishing the moment could last forever.   Jesus, from whose mouth he has often heard  words of Moses and Elijah, suddenly appears to him surrounded by them.  They are with, and in, Jesus, and Jesus is one with them.  The aura surrounding them – is it bursting from Peter’s heart?  is it within Peter, or from heaven?  Is there a difference between these possibilities?  Peter is in pure bliss. Pure... Read more

There are only two mother-in-law stories in the Bible, as far as I know.  One is the snippet in this week’s gospel, where Peter brings Jesus to his mother-in-law’s house because she is ill, and Jesus cures her.  The other is the Book of Ruth, in which a widow and her widowed daughter-in-law become each other’s salvation. These stories of devotion bely the stereotypical disdain that marks mother-in-law relations.  In the snippet about Peter, we learn the first of the... Read more

If you watched the final show of The Colbert Report  (and if you wish, you can see it now on YouTube), you saw a fantasy of resurrection, culminating in a rooftop scene where Santa arrived with Abraham Lincoln and Alex Trebek in his sleigh. Trebek , whom Colbert greeted as ‘the man with all the answers’ replied to Colbert’s question about the meaning of life, that all true wisdom comes in the form of questions. What do you have to... Read more

After John was arrested.    Mark adds  a sinister dimension to the calling of disciples – it takes place not in the halcyon days by the Jordan, but after John has been shut down, silenced, taken into custody from which he will never emerge to speak again. Everyone knows it, is angered by it.  Jesus, in full knowledge of this, walks along the seashore, calling first Simon and Andrew, then James and John, from their work as fishermen.   Come, and follow... Read more

When Jesus calls disciples, he is not seeking a balance of perfect qualities that will create a winning team.  He is not seeking to win titles, awards, or the world’s approval, through his disciples.  He calls them to come along with him, to learn from him how to be irreverent, and in being that, become God’s own. About most of the disciples we know nothing except their names, or perhaps a derisive nickname (the Sons of Thunder, the Rock).  Peter,... Read more

The Australian film, Tracks, tells the true story of  Robyn Davidson, a young woman who, in 1977, trekked nearly 2000 miles through the Australian wilderness (mostly desert), accompanied by four camels and a dog.  Davidson is struggling to deal with her own spiritual turmoil, which unfolds while she is walking in flashbacks, tears, determination, and grit.  Her mother committed suicide when she was 11.  Her father, a worker at a remote cattle station, sent Robyn to live with his sister,... Read more

 .  .  .  .  wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king .  .  .  .  (Matthew 2: 1-2) In Matthew’s tale of Jesus’ birth the only company, and the only recognition of the Child, comes from three strangers, called Wise Men, who were foolish enough to trust Herod the King (whom any urchin in the streets of Jerusalem could have warned them was a tricky character) and who were wise enough... Read more

Sitting Ducks.   The infant sons of Bethlehem were sitting ducks for Herod’s army, that infamous day the soldiers of the puppet King carried out the Slaughter of the Innocents.  How quiet, and for how long, can you keep a baby, when the streets fill with screaming  and terror is racing through your heart as you cradle that child? It was not the first time Jewish people had been sitting ducks.  There had been other slaughters of male infants, in Egypt... Read more

Good news; but if you ask me what it is, I know not; It is a track of feet in the snow, It is a lantern showing a path, It is a door set open. –G. K. Chesterton In the company of animals — inside  their door, upon their foot-worn floor, in the light of the lantern hung from their rafter, and in their care,  Christ is born.    Luke mentions none of them by name but describes the Child’s birth... Read more

We are all called to be mothers of God – for God is always waiting to be born. – Meister Eckhart, 13th c. German mystic It is only Luke who includes the conversation between the Archangel Gabriel and Mary, a conversation of questions, explanations, and then consent to bear a Child who will change the world.  According to Matthew, the issue at hand, the how-shall-this-happen question that follows the Child to this day, was Joseph’s issue, and it was to... Read more