Mark 7:31-37
I had a really great opportunity yesterday to spend some time thinking about one of my favorite moments in the gospel, one of my favorite things that Jesus says, when Jesus lays his hands on this deaf man’s head and puts his fingers in the man’s ears and he says, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened.”
John 6:56-69
Do you ever wonder how it is that we come to believe the things that we do? When we look at our lives, with an eye towards the experiences and the people who have led us to believe in one thing or another, do any patterns emerge? What things along the way, be they miraculous, life-changing or thought-provoking, have led us to a deeper faith? …
Mark 6:14-29
It’s hard to have much respect for Herod, isn’t it? Not only does he call for the death of John the Baptist, but he does it in such weasel-y, passive way that he can almost say to himself that he wasn’t really to blame for what happened…
In 2005 the Africa Hope Center opened its doors to five children, each of whom had lost both parents to HIV/AIDs…
Here’s the short version of our reading from Acts of the Apostles: Judas gets replaced, and the apostles move on. Peter points out the importance of having 12 eyewitnesses to the resurrection and the need for Judas’ seat at the table to be filled, and two understudies (Barsabbas and Matthias) are identified. Praying for God’s help in their choice, they said, “Lord, show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry.” They then cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias…
Who is Jesus, exactly? And if we follow Jesus, who then, are we? The disciples must have been asking this question over and over again as their relationship with Jesus grew. I imagine that with each new teaching, with every miracle that they witnessed for the first time, they had to ask themselves, “What’s going on here? Who is Jesus, anyway?…
When we read the story of the Exodus, I seem to always notice when the Israelites, finding themselves lost and hungry in the wilderness, turn to God, the very one who delivered them from slavery and oppression, and point the finger of blame. Why, they ask of Moses and of God, did you get us into this situation? We had it so good back there in Egypt! Why did we have to come here, where we are suddenly vulnerable and exposed? …
Tonight marks the beginning of the end of Jesus’ life. And the end is marked by something that is at the very heart of Jesus’ ministry and life: Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus loved them to the end. And his last gift to them was a gift of love. This last evening wasn’t just about the Eucharist, and it wasn’t just about what Jesus was going through in these last few hours before his death, and it wasn’t even about the betrayal that was to come, even though that was a part of the story…
I’d like to begin by speaking about a Navajo storyteller named Yellow Man. Yellow Man hosted an anthropologist for several years. This anthropologist was in search of artifacts of the Navajo oral history. And a relationship bloomed between them that lasted a whole generation, until Yellow Man died. The anthropologist was permitted to record Yellow Man’s stories onto audio tape, but only after promising that those stories would only be played when they were seasonally appropriate…
Mark 9:1-5
Mark doesn’t waste a lot of words on his introduction of Jesus. Jesus enters the frame without detail or ceremony as he steps into the water to be baptized by John. Remember that Mark is actually the earliest of the four gospels, so this is the very first time in the Gospels that we meet Jesus.
Now, at the beginning of lent, we encounter Jesus once again in this earliest account of his life and ministry…