50 years ago this summer, I went to Yellowstone National Park to fulfill my first preaching assignment. Mind you, I had not yet been to seminary, though I was admitted and ready to start in the fall of 1968. And since I had not been raised in the church, having attended only a few times in my Phoenix growing up years, though nearly every Sunday during my college days (if you wanted to sing in choir, you HAD to attend... Read more

( Lectionary for February 11, 2018) Today offers to the preacher one of the Bible’s great narratives, the stunning story of the healing of the Syrian general, Naaman, by the prophet, Elisha. A preacher would do well merely to tell this marvelous tale, focusing, of course, squarely on just what the story is about. But what it is in fact about needs some careful thought, since it could be said to be about more than one thing like all great... Read more

In July of 2011, my wife and I went to Norway, a place both of us had long wanted to see. We had seen many pictures of the place, but were frankly not prepared for the astonishing beauty we were about to experience. Norway is nothing less than a postcard around every turn in its roads, north to south and east to west. In 2017, Norway was named home to the happiest people on earth, displacing Denmark in that enviable... Read more

(Lectionary for February 4, 2018) This very familiar and much beloved passage should raise in us far more than warm feelings of the pleasurable presence of God when we are feeling particularly low about one modern thing or another. Maybe our energy is not up to snuff, making our workout less than satisfactory. Or maybe our too-boisterous toddlers have sapped us so much that we can hardly carry the laundry basket to our pristine laundry room, causing us a delay... Read more

In 1999 I was asked to offer some lectures in Australia by a former colleague at Perkins School of Theology, an offer I eagerly accepted. My wife and I had never been to Australia, nor had we visited New Zealand, its relatively near neighbor “down under.” I did not know what to expect in either country, but pictures I had seen, especially of New Zealand, whetted my appetite for the trip. Because I had no reason to go to New... Read more

(Lectionary for January 28, 2018) I admit that this passage has long been a source of fun for many who have read it. At first, it appears to be a very serious attempt to answer an extremely important question: how can one tell if words uttered by someone claiming to be a prophet are to be taken seriously? After all, every age is rife with persons who announce that they have assumed the prophetic mantle from God, who are literal... Read more

I am a huge fan of baseball. Oh, I know, that many of you find it slow and boring and the season interminably long; you prefer the violence of football and the pure and magnificently showy athleticism of basketball. I readily admit that I like those sports, too, though football’s physical and emotional toll on its players has begun to give me pause, and basketball has become a game only of huge players with even huger salaries and ego- driven... Read more

(Lectionary for January 21, 2018) We Christians do not know the story of Jonah well enough. It is a tale that is so relevant, so perspicacious for our day, that it is a terrible shame that it is not written right on all of our hearts. And it is a deeper shame that all we seem to know of it is that something like a whale (literally in the story “a big fish”) swallows the titular “hero,” and for centuries... Read more

When I was a freshman in High School, back in the dark age of 1960, I was 4 feet 11 inches tall. The very first person I met when I opened the door to my new school was the center on the basketball team who was that year 7 feet tall. I looked him square in the belly button, and nearly turned tail and ran home in horror. Still, I persisted, and even grew about 5 inches while serving my... Read more

(Lectionary for January 14, 2018) A bit over two years ago, I published a novel, King Saul. It has often been said, “Scratch an academic and find a would-be novelist just inside the skin.” It was certainly true for me. I had longed to try to write a novel ever since I was quite young, and always imagined myself interviewed on national television, asked probing questions about my writing method and just how I was able to conjure those characters... Read more