Today as I was taking my customary Monday fast and walk around Burke Lake, I stopped and opened up a book of writings by Maximus the Confessor, a Christian monk who lived from 580-662 AD. I opened up to an essay called the “Four Hundred Chapters on Love” (which is four hundred paragraphs according to today’s terminology but anyway). Here’s how the essay opens: Love is a good disposition of the soul by which one prefers no being to the... Read more
I’ve just been through a day where I have felt a lot of anger at myself because my forgetfulness caused a lot of pain to someone else. I want to respect the privacy of the person who I hurt, so I’ll have to speak somewhat cryptically. I agreed to do something that I didn’t have the authority to agree to and I forgot to ask the person who did have the authority until it was too late. What makes it... Read more
This summer, Pastor Larry and I are doing a sermon series about the deep roots that we have a Christian people. Our roots go back further than Jesus Himself. That’s why our Bible has an Old Testament. Jesus was Himself born into the people of Israel, so looking at the story of Israel’s founding fathers – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph – is critical to understanding who we are as Christians. Being a Christian means more than just having a... Read more
I hate megachurches probably about as much as Cain hated Abel for similar reasons. I’ve got sacrifice envy. How is it fair that those megachurches are experiencing 300+% annual growth when I’m working my butt off and reading my Bible and journaling constantly and trying to follow the Spirit’s lead and fasting every freaking Monday and our church’s worship attendance is down 15-20% in the year since I arrived. Don’t say “It’s not about you,” because I know that. But... Read more
I spent Father’s Day in Durham with both of my two families: my white family and my brown family. In the afternoon, I went down to the Eno River to swim with my white family where I noticed with perhaps a little too much pride that we were the only white people there (I guess most white people stick to chlorinated pools). Then on Sunday night after I put my boys to bed, I went out to the soccer field... Read more
I’m continuing my travelogue through Willie Jennings’ Christian Imagination as a way of coping with the tedium of Virginia’s Annual Conference. Chapter two of Jennings’ book is called “Acosta’s Laugh.” It concerns the perspective of 16th Jesuit theologian Jose Acosta who was one of the first Europeans to develop theology within the context of the New World, in Acosta’s case Peru. (more…) Read more
I’m continuing my travelogue through Willie Jennings’ Christian Imagination as a way of coping with the tedium of Virginia’s Annual Conference. Chapter two of Jennings’ book is called “Acosta’s Laugh.” It concerns the perspective of 16th Jesuit theologian Jose Acosta who was one of the first Europeans to develop theology within the context of the New World, in Acosta’s case Peru. (more…) Read more
At Methodist annual conferences, there are a whole lot of reports that have to be shared and approved, which makes for a lot of boredom. To cope with this boredom, I have been reading Willie Jennings’ Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. (more…) Read more
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience where you read a book that causes you to see things in a certain way and then you forget which book you read that was the source of your thinking. That happened to me this week so I went searching for the book. It’s by a theologian named Marva Dawn and it’s called Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God. My old pastor Larry Bowden at Resurrection UMC in Durham, NC... Read more
Sermon preached on Pentecost Sunday, June 12, 2011 Text: Acts 2:1-21 Tongues of fire. It sounds like the cover of a Rolling Stones album. Or maybe a Star Trek episode in which Spock and Captain Kirk are surrounded by molten, carnivorous life-forms that their cheesy ray-guns are no match against. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit is not just an idea or a warm and fuzzy feeling in your heart but a fiery cloud that causes the disciples to speak... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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