From the Margins: A Sad Mother Luke 7:11-17 Last week we began a conversation about the lectionary Gospel passages these next few weeks, which are stories about Jesus and his ministry that give us front row seats at interactions he has with people on the margins of society. As we heard last week in the story of the Roman centurion whose slave Jesus healed, marginalized are not necessarily people without position or even resources; they are, however, people who do... Read more

Aftermath Acts 6:1-7, Trinity Sunday Good morning, and welcome to Trinity Sunday, the Sunday of the church year in which we celebrate the idea of one God expressed in three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit…Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer…God, Jesus, Spirit….  However you want to say it, it’s that simple, easy to understand Christian concept of one God, except three expressions. Christians have long argued with each other about the idea of the Trinity, which you can easily see with just a... Read more

  Okay, it’s really a synagogue, not a bar.  But there will be two rabbis and me next Monday night at Sixth & I Synagogue, along with journalists from The Washington Post and The Atlantic, all together to have a conversation about female clergy.  I hope you’ll consider coming out and joining us; the panelists are wonderful and Sixth & I is a great place.  Read more about the event here. Read more

Eyes Wide Open: From Staring Confused to Focused With Purpose John 17:20-26 Although I was required to take both Old Testament and New Testament Survey courses in college, I can tell you without a doubt that most everything I know about the stories of the Bible came from Arch books. And it’s a good thing for those Arch books, for they inspired more than one very holy Halloween costume, among other things!  (That’s a long story for another time…). They... Read more

Eyes Wide Open: From Troubled Hearts to Peace-Filled Lives John 14:23-29 I’ve been getting a lot of comments these past few weeks about the length of the worship services recently.  Mostly from the nursery workers.  We work very hard to plan worship that lasts about an hour on Sunday mornings, but sometimes, it’s true, we go over a little.  I was thinking our services may have run a bit longer than usual because during the season of Easter we’ve had... Read more

Eyes Wide Open: From Exclusive to Inclusive Acts 11:1-18 It’s good, I think, to always be learning something, no matter how old you are.  I’m finding that living with high school students is a good strategy for making that happen.  Based on what I’ve seen in recent years, it seems to me that curriculum has come a long way since I was in high school, when we never studied anything nearly as interesting as the teenagers in my house seem... Read more

I’m tired of writing pastoral blog posts in response to horrible, tragic things.  I wrote something like that here…and here and probably some other places, too. The thing is, there’s only so much you can say about such events.  Even those of us who like to express ourselves with words run out of them. Especially in situations like these. Because when terrible things happen, like what happened in Boston (and New York and Virginia and Newtown), mostly I just want to... Read more

Eyes Wide Open: From Blind Conviction to True Purpose Acts 9:1-20 I’m not much of a television viewer, but recently I began watching the first season of a show that debuted on NBC last season.  I was a little behind, as usual, but at the suggestion of a friend I watched the first episode of the first season of SMASH.  Well, I will just admit here that after that first episode, I was hooked. The story begins with a play... Read more

My favorite post for Good Friday. Peace, all. Read more

Full Circle, Palm Sunday Luke 19:28-40 Life has a funny way of coming full circle.  I thought about that this week when I read a story about Randall Henry, an artist in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Henry was being interviewed for the opening of an art show in which fourteen of his paintings were on display.  The show is being held in the Kress Gallery, which was at one time the Kress Department Store.  Henry’s paintings are on display there, in... Read more