(Matthew 4:12-23, from The Third Sunday After the Epiphany)
I long assumed that Jesus’ first sermon had been a dud.
Continue reading “Imagining alternatives”A Christmas chat with my demon
(John 1:1-18, from Second Sunday after Christmas Day)
My demon stopped by for a chat toward the end of Christmas Day.
Continue reading “A Christmas chat with my demon”A butt-kicking Messiah
Matt. 3:1-12, from Second Sunday of Advent)
Listening to John the Baptist’s fiery wilderness sermon in the third chapter of Matthew, it’s easy to get the idea that the coming Messiah will be a butt-kicker of the first order.
Continue reading “A butt-kicking Messiah”Uninvited, undeserved salvation
Luke 19:1-10, from Proper 26 (31)
Zacchaeus, the funny little man in the funny little story that opens the 19th chapter of St. Luke’s gospel, perhaps comes off as comic relief during the otherwise intense, ominous story of Jesus’ trip through Jericho on his way to betrayal and execution in Jerusalem. I remember much being made in Sunday school when I was a boy about the facts that Zacchaeus was short and that he resorted to climbing a tree so he could see Jesus over the heads of the rest of the crowd. Show of hands: Who remembers the song? It started out, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he …” Bonus points if you can still do the motions.
Continue reading “Uninvited, undeserved salvation”The chronically penitent publican
Luke 18:9-14, from Proper 25 (30)
At what point would the breast-beating tax collector’s anguished confession in Luke 18:9-14 start going stale for you?
Continue reading “The chronically penitent publican”“Back when I was a leper …”
Luke 17:11-19, from Proper 23 (28)
For a bunch of supposedly godless apostates, the New Testament’s Samaritans sure do get an awful lot of things about godliness right.
Continue reading ““Back when I was a leper …””Eating humble muffin
Luke 16:19-31, from Proper 21 (26)
I received a gift this week so valuable that I didn’t know what to do with it and ended up eating it.
Continue reading “Eating humble muffin”Having it all
Luke 14:25-33, from Proper 18 (23)
A life lived apart from God may not be as miserable as evangelical Christianity’s marketing often suggests.
Continue reading “Having it all”Oh, look … an elephant …
Luke 13:10-17, from Proper 16 (21)
Jesus often talked completely over the heads of the people around him, and often, it seems, completely on purpose.
But at times he said things that hit people right between the eyes, or perhaps right in the heart. This week’s Gospel reading recounts one of those times.
Continue reading “Oh, look … an elephant …”Nobodies
Luke 10:25-41, from the Proper 10 (15)
Twenty-five-year-old Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez was a nobody. His daughter, Valeria, just shy of 2, was even more of a nobody. But they’re both famous now, although not necessarily by name. Their picture made news around the world in late June. It shows the two of them nestled close, her tiny arm around his neck, his shirt stretched over her as a makeshift carrier, and both of them face down in the muddy Rio Grande river, dead.
Continue reading “Nobodies”