“Joseph, her husband, was a man of integrity.  Not wanting Mary to be disgraced, he intended to dismiss her quietly.  But while he was thinking about these things . . .”  –Matthew 1:19-20 Where is God in the midst of life’s unwarranted developments, disruptions, crises?  When we are confronted with circumstances we have not asked[…]

The God revealed in this story is the One who gifts unreservedly, who loves without negotiation, who indwells, who makes space for new life where space has not been perceived (or has even been prohibited), who links our lives inseparably with everyone else’s, who nurtures, who astonishes us with the invitation to welcome fully God’s[…]

  ” . . . the events of the New Testament are an intervention into the core structure of violent humanity in order to change it into something loving, peaceful, and life giving.”  –Anthony Bartlett   I would like to consider the above proposition  through the lens of  Matthew 3:13-17, the account of Jesus’ baptism.[…]

When folks ask me about my fascination with forgiveness and my dedication to it,  I tell  them that my life has been a laboratory in it.  I have needed forgiveness, and received it, in abundance. I have also suffered injuries that have required its practice if I was to heal. But I must confess another[…]

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” –Luke 24:32 Imagine that you and I grew up being taught that Jesus died to pay the price that God demanded in exchange for forgiveness of our sins, that God’s need for[…]

” . . . God likes us so much that he has, in a sense, made available in our midst a way to dis-entangle us from the mess we inhabit, before we even knew that it was a mess, and instead has invited us to share with God, at the same level as ourselves, in[…]

  As we rise early on this Good Friday morning, I imagine that Simon Peter has not yet slept. Last night at dinner he insisted that even if one of the other disciples would betray Jesus, he would not. In the ensuing argument over who was the greatest, the strongest, and the most faithful, he[…]

  When you visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, you descend a pathway at the base of two black granite walls inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 American servicepeople who died in that war.  The two walls form a kind of broad “V,”  like wings, one pointing south toward the nearby Lincoln[…]

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” –John 14:27 On the first Sunday in May, I woke early for prayer and final preparation of a dialogue sermon on peace. The text was to be John 14:23-29, with particular attention to verse[…]

“Trauma inevitably brings loss . . . The survivor frequently resists mourning , not only out of fear but also out of pride. She may consciously refuse to grieve as a way of denying victory to the perpetrator. In this case it is important to reframe the (person’s) mourning as an act of courage rather[…]