Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 and/or Isaiah 35:4-7 What It’s About: I never quite know what to do with the various options that the lectionary gives us. That’s true for preaching, and that’s true for writing this blog. Sometimes I choose one and ignore the other, and sometimes I try to take account of both. These two passages, from Proverbs and from Isaiah, couldn’t really be more different on the surface. One is from the wisdom tradition, and it gives advice for... Read more

  Song of Solomon 2:8-13 What It’s About: These verses are standard Song of Solomon: the lover and the beloved exchanging compliments and articulating longings. And it’s pretty compelling; while some of the imagery in this book can be hard to translate into the 21st century (hi there, flocks of goats descending Mt. Gilead), a lot of us have known the sensation of wanting your beloved to come away with you into the fields. What It’s Really About: Origen of Alexandria... Read more

  1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-45 What It’s About: This is the prayer Solomon offered at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. It serves as a kind of a charter for the temple-king alliance, as it draws explicit and implicit connections between God’s dwelling place in the temple (or, at least the dwelling of God’s name there), and the righteousness and longevity of the Davidic line. The prayer has a kind of inward/outward structure (more on that in a moment), beginning... Read more

  1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 What It’s About: This passage is sort of the launch story for Solomon. It’s not the first time we meet Solomon, but it’s the place where we learn one of the defining things about him–that he was wise. Each of the early kings of the united monarchy seem to have multiple traditions about them intertwined; David, for instance, was both a shepherd and a musician. In the case of Solomon, the two big narratives are that he... Read more

Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on the Future of Progressive Christianity in America. Read other perspectives here.   I’ve spent most of my adult life in Asheville, NC and Denver, CO, so I have had to become a beer snob. Even in Denver, where you can see those same mountains that are found on those Coors cans and bottles, you can’t walk into a bar and order a Coors Light without every hipster in earshot giving... Read more

What follows is a sermon I preached this morning, using 2 Samuel 11:1-15 as the text. I hesitate to post it here, because sermons like this are so contextual and specific to the communities to which they are delivered, but I feel strongly about the words I say here, and I want to share them.   This is a sermon about Sin. That’s Sin with a capital S and no plural at the end. But I want to start with... Read more

Hello from Columbus, Ohio, where my home denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) are holding its General Assembly. We gather once every two years to express our unity, hash out differences of opinion, and see to the business of operating a mainline denomination. I’m having an especially good time this year since I’m spending most of my time at the booth for the Iliff School of Theology, the school where I’m employed, and I’m getting the chance to chat with... Read more

Greetings from sunny and muggy Hot Springs NC, where I am taking in one day of the Wild Goose Festival. This is my third year at the Wild Goose, and you can find my reflections on the festival in prior years here, here, here, here, and here. Rather than taking my customary approach to the texts, I thought I’d treat the lectionary readings as touchstones to talk about what I’m hearing and seeing here at the festival this year. The Wild Goose... Read more

  2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 and/or Amos 7:7-17 What It’s About: These are two very different texts. The first, from 2 Samuel, is an amazing look into the life of David and the world of ancient Israel. Here we see David dancing, frolicking almost, among the people and before the Lord. It’s a beautiful moment of seemingly unabashed joy. The Amos text, on the other hand, bears witness to clashing agendas, with Jereboam and his loyalists on one side and Amos... Read more

  2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 and/or Ezekiel 2:1-5 What It’s About: The 2 Samuel text is about David’s ascension to the throne and an overview of his reign; the Ezekiel text is an account of a prophetic call and charge. Both of these are ways of describing how God insinuates God’s presence into the midst of the people. Kingship was a major way that the divine was mediated to the people, and kings like David were presumed to have an especially close... Read more