Responding to Jesus’ offer of freedom and a new start takes vision – our ability to respond, actually starts with our eyes and how we see the world and the people around us. And in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration it also starts with bright lights, metamorphosis and an unbelievable trip up a mountain. Matthew … [Read more…]
Turn the other cheek – love our enemies – pray for those who persecute us? Of course, it all looks good on paper, especially coming from Jesus, but come on, he can’t be serious? And just when you thought you might be able to try out this stuff from Jesus – he caps it off … [Read more…]
Both Jesus and Moses encourage us to not fight the law, but to lean into it, to stand upon it, to trust it as a guide for our lives and a reminder that God’s law is truly a matter of the heart. A matter of the lengths that God will go and has gone to … [Read more…]
When it comes to our practice of faith and a relationship with God – God is not interested in simply seeing a box checked. Instead, God wants the relationship to be ingrained in us. God wants justice and kindness to be embedded in the culture of the community, to be the very air that we … [Read more…]
In the Beatitudes, Jesus offers formulas for what constitutes blessedness—not good fortune or prosperity or personal achievement, but rather blessed states that we would not typically associate with being blessed. Given our culture’s obsessions with wealth and status, what does it mean for us to hear the people that Jesus considers blessed? Matthew 5:1-12 … [Read more…]
Responses to the new president have been all over the board – from all those celebrating his inauguration and expectant for the promised change to come – to all those who have marched and protested who are fearful about the prospects of that very same change – to all those who don’t know what to … [Read more…]
Jesus does not threaten, coerce, intimidate, or plead his case – instead he invites – come and see. A fair warning however – there is a problem when we accept this invitation – spending time with Jesus – learning about his priorities – wrestling with his interpretations of scripture – it all has the power … [Read more…]
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all … [Read more…]
God’s desire from the beginning of creation, up to this very moment is to have the birth of Jesus in that manger be a birth in us – a movement from where we are now to where God wants to lead us When you’re a kid, time seems to slow down to a glacial pace and … [Read more…]
John the Baptist preached passionately that the One who was to come would judge with fire. But Jesus’ ministry was different – instead of fire, we hear that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are made clean and the dead are raised to new life. What would it mean for John that instead of … [Read more…]