There’s a joke that says “if you remember the sixties, you weren’t really there.” I am a child of the sixties. I remember a teenager, rail thin, long-haired, scruffy, growing my first beard, a pilgrim on a magical mystery tour with Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Siddhartha, and Steppenwolf as my companions and the Sermon on the Mount, Thoreau, Whitman, Lao Tzu, and the Upanishads as my guides. I remember soaring eight miles high with the Byrds, tripping with the Chamber’s brothers... Read more
One moment can change your life. A chance encounter can destroy a promising life. Elwood Curtis, a idealistic black high school student, inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, hitches a ride to an advanced class at a local college, not knowing that the driver, another young black man, is wanted by the police. Though innocent, he’s found guilty – after all, he’s a young black man in the early 1960’s and sentenced to spend the next two years... Read more
Recently, we’ve heard the chants of “send her back” and “go back to where you came from” at rallies, on tweets, and in conversations with the press. These “love it or leave it” mantras remind me of a similar encounter recorded in scripture, this one, between the prophet Amos and the court priest Amaziah, in which Amaziah tells the prophetic critic Amos to go back to Tekoa, in the Southern Kingdom, and stop troubling his Northern Kingdom siblings. Though Amos... Read more
The Adventurous Lectionary – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Hosea 1:2-10 Psalm 85 Colossians 2:6-19 Luke 11:1-19 Today’s readings are about divine generosity and recovery. We recognize that there is an ethical calculus in the universe: though injustice reaps rewards quickly, eventually those who are unjust will experience, as Amos says, a famine of hearing God’s word and will reap the whirlwind of social chaos and disorder. Eventually they will be deposed. Those who forget future generations, inspired by power and... Read more
The Adventurous Lectionary – The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2019 Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42 Today’s scriptures join the cosmic and the local, the macro and the micro, the divine universality and the divine intimacy. They point to a deep Christology, a deep incarnation, that embraces every aspect of life, joining theology, mysticism, social transformation, and personal ethics. Christ is the Life of All Things and Each Thing, the infinite is the infinite, creating... Read more
The Adventurous Lectionary – The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost – July 14, 2019 Amos 7:7-17 Psalm 82 Colossians 1:1-14 Luke 10:25-37 Today’s readings are timely. Reports of unsafe and unsanitary conditions in border detention camps, separation of children from their parents, and the demonization of immigrants and asylum seekers by national leaders dominate the news. The nation is in danger of losing its soul as our leaders intentionally undermine environmental regulations, threaten massive roundups of long-term, law-abiding undocumented residents, and... Read more
I love the Fourth of July. I grew up with parades, fireworks, and picnics, and this year will be no exception. But, as I grow older, the meaning of the Fourth of July has changed for me. This year, I am especially conscious of the growing distance between the elusive American dream and the realities of American life. In the past year, we’ve seen children separated from parents, housed in camps that fail any test of hygiene or ethics. We’ve... Read more
The upcoming conference focusing on the “Future of Process Theology,” to be held July 24-26 in Fairbanks, Alaska, has inspired me to articulate my own future vision for process theology as it continues to interact with our postmodern, pluralistic, and increasingly interdependent world. I have been a process theologian, amateur and professional, for nearly fifty years. I first encountered process theology as a student at San Jose State University in Richard Keady’s and Marie Fox’s classes in 1973. Looking back,... Read more
The Adventurous Lectionary -The Fourth Sunday in Pentecost – July 7, 2019 2 Kings 5:1-14 Psalm 30 Galatians 6:7-16 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 In today’s scriptures, we are confronted with the need for divine healing, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and theologically. Healing brings wholeness and connects us God’s energy of love, transforming our relationships and sense of connection with the wellsprings of divine providence. The encounter of Elisha and Naaman is among my favorite healing stories. It could be titled, “the healing... Read more
The Adventurous Lectionary – The Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 30, 2019 2 Kings 2:1-4, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62 Today’s readings take us beyond the ordinary and ask us to launch out in new directions of faithfulness to God. They ask us to awaken to higher levels of reality and believe great things. They challenge us to trust God’s presence working creatively and redemptively in our own freedom. They ask us to live by... Read more
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