I remember the first time I was told I had “a pastor’s heart.” It was a very affirming moment for me. Like many pastors, I have experienced those “dark nights of the soul” where I was not sure if I was cut out for this work. Ironically, those times are evidences of the pastor’s heart. “Pastor” is a uniquely Christian role in the community. The role of the pastor connects the person to the heart of Jesus. St. Peter refers... Read more
The meme world maintains that the Church is never closed. The building is closed. The ministry continues. These nice sentiments aside, we know our church closed, temporarily. Many ministries were suspended. We know the virtual worship services were not the same. The usual worshiping community did not all log on at the same time. We want to see the church re-opening. The central question for all of us is this. Are we re-opening the same Church? What Was Our Church... Read more
I teach Bible studies. That’s not a big surprise considering I am a pastor. Each study I hold gives time to how to interpret the text and how we may apply it. When beginning a new series of studies I caution the class about one important aspect that is easily forgotten. “Respect the fact that Holy Scripture is alien to us.” This Is News? I get funny looks when I say that. The Bible is very alien to us in... Read more
Christians make bad proclamations out of good observations. St. Paul’s famous observation from Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death,” is just long enough for a meme or bumper sticker. The same thing is true of 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Somehow, these observations about life became proclamations that serve to instill guilt and demand that humans mourn forever. I get some weird media images in my mind here. One... Read more
I have a question for everyone who thinks about divine judgment. What do you believe is going on? I mean really. Churches teach judgment as an image of the great courtroom beyond the sky to children and youth where everyone’s sins get listed (I suppose with place and time just to establish the fact). Jesus shows up to clean the slate for those who believed in him and the story. Who is being vindicated in this image? Who is in... Read more
This is an announcement of an interview I am giving this week. I will be appearing this Monday on a friend’s vlog Monday April 27th at 2pm EDT. Catch the livestream if you can. Later, that day the recording will be accessible. I will try to provide a link to that later on Monday. I hope you get to view it at http://vlog.sshapira.com. The theme of the discussion is #SafetyOverTradition. Read more
Good morning, God. Hear my prayer. It’s April 22nd. We are commemorating the first Earth Day demonstration fifty years later. Today we are seeing clearer waters and skies. The air is cooler for some of us. By and large, I am sitting still. I offer this prayer in remembrance. There is a terrible disease moving around the world. This Covid-19 is having terrible effects on the health and well-being of your children here. I know this is a common occurrence... Read more
A community Easter egg hunt is an interesting example of commutative justice. Okay. Hold your judgment on whether I am oversimplifying or overcomplicating until later. Easter egg hunts are done in large areas that are divided into sections. The children hunting the eggs are assigned to sections by age groups. The toddlers in one area, kindergarten to third grade in another, etc. so each child has the potential to find enough eggs to be satisfied. The older, taller, faster, and... Read more
Alfred Nobel never endowed a prize for mathematics. Legend has it his mistress left him for a mathematician. I doubt it is true. But if it is, mathematicians got even with the Nobel Prize for Economic Science. I like the term “hard sciences.” The sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics require work that can be reproduced from the practitioners. There are two messages we hear about the American economy. The first is it is the world’s strongest. The second is... Read more
I once saw a funny meme on a T-shirt. It read, “on the eighth day we started bulldozing.” I saw two different messages involved there. The obvious message concerned environmental stewardship. The not as obvious message is really simple. What happened on the eighth day of Creation? I first heard of Easter Monday when I moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was a traditional day off of the Moravian Church that first settled Salem. We have nothing like that on... Read more
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