In the seventh chapter of John we find Jesus teaching at the Temple. Folks are murmuring about the bravery of Jesus to just go to the front of the Temple and start teaching. Some are murmuring that Jesus is a fraud. Some are murmuring that Jesus is exactly what they have all been waiting for. The illustration being that when we have the bravery to cross boundaries there will always be people who get frustrated…but there will also always be... Read more
This very hour marks the third day I have gone without food to pray for true peace in Syria. While most fasts are silent, I have chosen for this fast to not be so in order to draw attention to the devastating consequences of further military intervention in Syria. President Obama has said that there is a need to bomb Syria in order to teach President Bashar al-Assad a lesson. This way of thinking is an age-old fallacy that is... Read more
We gather this morning in the midst of impending war in Syria, economic injustice, skyrocketing rates of violence worldwide, and a relative state of injustice…yet still we gather. We gather because in this moment we choose to believe that God has created humanity for love and not for hate. We gather because over 50 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of his dream of beloved community – a world community united in love. This morning we gather... Read more
My heart is deeply troubled. The leader of the nation that I live in has started to contemplate dropping bombs again. I voted for the leader. I helped buy the bombs. Though I have no control over the decisions being made, I am responsible for what happens next. The bombs will unquestionably escalate a conflict in Syria that has already claimed the lives of over 100,000. More people will die. There will be more pictures of children wrapped in... Read more
read at the august 25, 2013 service of the church at mable peabody’s: fifty years ago… the prophetic words rang out because from a few rows back one woman had the courage to shout mahalia jackson declared “tell them about the dream martin” justice was spoken like a song and the people were given new courage to press on the generation that heard the words started the race and we are here to keep the faith in... Read more
In the seventh chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus is found in the midst of a verbal assault perpetrated by the family of Jesus. They were ashamed of who Jesus most authentically was. They were even more disturbed by Jesus’ insistence on claiming his authentic or actualized self. Sound familiar? So often in life when we begin to claim the queer within, there are attacks by those who live comfortably immersed in the evils of normativity... Read more
you were here and now you are not you were there and now you are not you were somewhere and now you are not in our everywheres we find our strongest reality is god not more than sentimentality but a presence that seems elusive or perhaps conducive to our lives shall we die this moment first to ourselves or shall we live and deny the matter of our disaster do we care about the quiz that is... Read more
In life we consistently encounter storms. Some are big. Some are small. The truth for me is that I seem to always be walking into a storm, through a storm, or out of a storm. I think this is the case for any person who is actually living. I actually would argue that if you haven’t seen a storm in a while then you probably aren’t doing too much. The disciples were in a boat in the middle... Read more
“Queer Love or God Finds Us in Queer Spaces” George Berry is a large man with a round face, stunning smile, and large eyes that beam through rather hip slightly oversized spectacles. I visit George as often as I can. He lives in another part of Texas and is unable to travel. During our last visit, George let down his defenses and told me that he was attracted to men. “Jeff, I like butts man,” is how he... Read more
There was a multitude of people who were interested in what Jesus had to say. Now I say interested, remember that just because they were following Jesus doesn’t mean they believed shit. They were interested or perhaps they were lost just following the crowd. Jesus looked out at the people and knew that they must be hungry. Jesus felt that there existed a responsibility to feed the people. How are we to respond when we know people are hungry? ... Read more
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