One gold box. One gold box with a red bow and a bunch of homemade cookies inside can serve to remind us of both—on the one hand—fire and passion, and—on the other hand—comfort and compassion. Because more than one thing can be true at the same time.
Have you heard that saying? I spent some time this … Read the rest
Continue reading "More Than One Truth" »
Whew. This gut-wrenching Palm Sunday Gospel, dramatically enacted by… reads like a catalog of provocative questions and defamatory statements about Jesus’ identity. At the outset, Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews, and then the Gospel ends with a centurion proclaiming “truly this man was God’s son.” In between, there’s all manner of mocking … Read the rest
Continue reading "Just Do (Do) It" »
“The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.”
In a simpler age, before COVID-19 and the invasion of Ukraine and atmospheric rivers and devastating floods and yet another mass shooting in a school, I might have read the scary … Read the rest
Continue reading "Stay Awake" »
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment, Luke tells us. OK, but I’m not really sure I believe it. Just the day before, darkness had come over the whole land and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. That is to say, all the most reliable measures of life—the rotation of the earth … Read the rest
Continue reading "Wait with the Women" »
Whew. This gut-wrenching Palm Sunday story, dramatically read by our deacon and his family, reads like a catalog of provocative questions and defamatory statements about Jesus’ identity. At the outset, Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews, and then the Gospel ends with a centurion proclaiming “truly this man was God’s son.” In between, … Read the rest
Continue reading "Chaos into Quiet" »
They didn’t train us for this in seminary. And by this, I don’t mean pastoring through a global pandemic, or becoming video producers or online educators. Although most of us didn’t know much about that before the COVID-19 quarantine, so we’re all learning on the job, no?
No nos entrenaron para esto en el seminario. Y no … Read the rest
Continue reading "Holy Fracture/Santo Fracaso" »
I don’t know about you, but I really struggle to imagine how Jesus could ride into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt. It might be a first world problem: I drive a car and I don’t have much experience riding animals, so that makes it especially hard for me to envision what it would be like … Read the rest