(Lectionary for January 2 9) The era of President Donald Trump has begun, and it has not begun auspiciously. The new president spent the day of his inauguration and the day following in a school- yard spat with multiple news sources who quite accurately reported that the crowds at his inauguration were something like one-third as large as Barack Obama’s crowds at his inauguration in 2009. CNN announced this fact, and it was corroborated by professional crowd estimators who viewed... Read more

  (Above: Peter Marshall)    (Lectionary for January 15, 2017  Psalm 40) Because I am a long-time United Methodist clergyman, I have had difficulty embracing the notion of evangelism, that idea that part of my work was to convince others that my way of construing the world should by necessity be their way, too. I have rebelled against this notion since my ordination in 1970. I readily admit that my fear and loathing of this idea has only increased the... Read more

(Lectionary for January 8, 2017) Because I have already addressed Isaiah in many of my posts for Year C of the lectionary, and because the same Isaiah texts come up again over the next few weeks, I have decided to take on some of the psalms assigned instead. In my previous life as the author of the “Opening the Old Testament” lectionary commentary for Patheos I similarly headed off to the realms of the Psalms; I am going to do... Read more

(Lectionary for January 1, 2017) Though there are two other optional texts suggested for this first day of the calendar, this year on a Sunday, I choose to focus on the famous (infamous?) passage from the odd book of Ecclesiastes. This text regularly is chosen for the first day of a new year, and I confess I am never sure quite why. Just what is interesting/attractive/engaging/worthwhile about Ecc.3 at the beginning of a year? I admit to being at least... Read more

 (Lectionary for Christmas Day, 2016) I wonder how many of you preachers pray, silently, I presume, that Christmas this year will not fall on a Sunday? For if it does, as well you know, the crowds will be sparse, your preparation not as careful as it could be, and your children still at home cry for one day, finally, that Mom/Dad will stay in the house for the stockings, the presents, and leisurely brunch. Christmas on a Sunday decidedly dims the... Read more

 (Lectionary for December 18, 2016) I have long found it nothing less than peculiar that this particular text has become the stuff of biblical legend. The text itself is a very odd, pseudo-historical mishmash, the subject of vast scholarly commentary, furious denominational debate, and the cause of more than a few trials for heresy! A roaring tempest in a teapot, say I! The source of a good deal of the brouhaha is to be found in the rather innocuous looking... Read more

(Lectionary for December 11, 2016) Once again in this brief essay I wish to show just how radical this Advent season can be. In week one for this year we all were bid to “beat our swords into plowshares” and “to learn war no more.” Then in week two we all were asked to stop judging others only by what we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears, but rather employ the lenses of justice and righteousness... Read more

(Lectionary for Dec. 4, 2016) That great American theologian, Mark Twain (he is now spinning in his grave to be so named!), once said, “Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.” He was of course quite right in both cases; however, familiarity also breeds indifference, and, on occasion, an inability to see anything genuinely new. How often have we faced this Advent text and sighed, “Ah! Such a pleasant dream! Would that it were true that wolves rested with lambs, while lions chowed down... Read more

(Lectionary for November 27, 2016)I commend to you today a book written well over one hundred years ago: The Mountains of California, by that poetic botanist, John Muir. Do not be put off by the extraordinary detail concerning the flora of this Edenic part of the world. Yes, you will be exposed to more about the various sorts of pine trees in the high Sierras than perhaps you can swallow in one gulp. But the prose is lyrical in the... Read more

(Lectionary for November 20, 2016) This year the lectionary text offers what appears to be a rich irony for this Sunday. After the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the USA, is it not supremely odd that today’s text speaks so famously of God’s promise of “a righteous branch,” of one who will “reign as king and deal wisely, executing justice and righteousness in the land,” one whose very name will be “YHWH is our righteousness” (Jer... Read more