St. Joseph is the patron saint of workers. I learned that today during a tour of the Franciscan monastery in DC. It makes sense of course. Joseph and his stepson Jesus were both carpenters. The word “worker” has a specific connotation in our culture. We immediately know that Joseph is not the patron saint of doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, or even pastors, because “workers” are people who work with their hands. “Workers” have jobs that deal with the real world instead... Read more
I used to build enormous towers out of blocks when I was four years old. My mom’s fridge still has a picture of me standing next to one of my towers beaming with pride. I built it. It’s a phrase that embodies the essence of human pride. Building something permanent was the ancient pagan form of immortality — to leave a legacy, hopefully with an engraving or a statue, so that no one would ever forget you. This is why... Read more
Freedom is one of those words that seems to have a very straightforward definition. It means being able to do what you want to do. Right? That is the definition presumed in the Enlightenment discourse that has shaped American cultural sensibilities. Freedom is the opposite of being bossed around by somebody else. But here’s the wrinkle. What if you can’t trust yourself to actually do what you want to do? What if you’re like St. Paul, who said, “I do... Read more
In the Daily Office scripture reading for Monday, a verse that caught my eye was Acts 9:31 — “Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.” Of course, being a pastor in a declining mainline denomination, any reference to an “increase in numbers” is going to get my attention. But there’s also something beautiful and... Read more
An Israeli court ruled today that there was nothing negligible or criminal about the March 2003 death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed by an Israeli Caterpillar bulldozer while standing in front of a house the bulldozer was about to flatten. Rachel had gone to Gaza as part of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an activist organization that put Westerners in Palestinian neighborhoods to prevent the Israeli military from using live ammunition and bulldozers against civilians with... Read more
As I’ve shared before, I spend my Mondays in the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, which I call the basilica for short. I haven’t known exactly what to think about the dozen or so statues of Mary that are in the various chapels surrounding both the cathedral sanctuary and the crypt. In a different phase of my life, I would count them as proof of the idolatry of Roman Catholicism and a blatant... Read more
Few verses in the Bible have been more damaging historically to women in Western civilization than Ephesians 5:22 — “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” This has been a go-to verse in the argument against giving the women the right to vote or letting them have careers outside the home; more drastically it has been used to counsel women in abusive relationships not to leave their husbands since they should submit to them even if they’re violent.... Read more
In the Catholic America magazine, James Martin, S.J. offers the following retelling of familiar gospel stories using laissez-faire capitalist values like those of libertarian hero Ayn Rand’s sacred text Atlas Shrugged. I know some of you will roll your eyes, but consider these questions. Would you heal a man whose friends had just torn the roof off your house? If you were the main speaker at a rally where the people in attendance hadn’t brought food, would you personally take... Read more
In contemporary Christian worship, a distinction is often made between worship that is “really worship” versus “just a performance.” For example, does the music invite authentic congregational participation or is it filled with guitar solos, pyrotechnics, and fog machines that make the service a concert that gives people goose bumps for cheap manufactured reasons? I want to look at a different contrast between worship and performance that I see at the heart of the gospel. I believe we were created... Read more
Success is the American virtue. Its pursuit is what drives just about every aspect of our society, whether it’s success in school, success in sports, success in dating, success on the career ladder, success in parenting, success in retiring comfortably. I would argue that the American worship of success is what causes American Christians to minimize the importance of Jesus’ most prominent body of teaching, the Sermon on the Mount which has a lot of problematic things to say to... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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