In recent years activists of all sorts have been at work changing the perception of Thanksgiving. Native Americans have instituted a gathering at Plymouth Rock to commemorate the indigenous lives lost in the European “invasion.” If you search the “real” history of Thanksgiving you’ll see...
Our readings this day describe an arc. Beginning with Ezekiel speaking God’s words into a lost world, through Paul’s reassurance of the historical fact of resurrection and its meaning for us, concluding with Jesus speaking in Jerusalem of His righteous judgement, we read of God’s...
Do you have any talents? I’ll bet you do. Maybe you were born with a musical talent – in that case, I’m envious. Languages. I know some folks who just seem to be adept at picking up languages – not something I can do. So...
Remember on Good Friday Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Desperate words from a man abandoned… Jesus felt in those moments the absence of God. That is one definition of hell, isn’t it, the absence of God. In our readings...
This weekend we recognize All Saints Day. In these days we remember, and give thanks for the faith of, all those Christians who have gone on before us, now dwelling with the Lord in the heavenly realms. What’s it like up there, anyway? Scripture offers few...
The 16th and 21st centuries sure are different, aren’t they? Everything has changed. We live in an electronic world; they lived in a fire-lit world. We have modern medicine; they had herbal remedies and nothing else except the bone saw. They had the plague and...
Today we look to Psalm 23 verse 5. David writes, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” We would normally think of David rendering service to God. But here, he states the total opposite—God is attending to his needs. The...
Names in the Old Testament were different than names now. Not just the names themselves, but in OT times names conveyed meaning, unlike today, when it seems anything goes. And there were generally not last names in the OT – villages were small, and you might...
Our readings today, Isaiah 5:1-7 and the Gospel, Matthew 21:33-46 reflect the ancient cultural connection to the cultivation of grapes for wines. Both testaments offer the vineyard as symbol of God’s desire for us to yield good fruit. Now, there’s a pretty good vineyard story, before...
Psalm 25 is a beautiful statement of faith, confession of sin, reminder of God’s grace and faithfulness – and also complex literature. It is an acrostic, that is, each successive verse begins with the succeeding consonant of the Hebrew alphabet, verse one with aleph, verse...