Luke 18:9-14 I am in the habit of beginning my prayers with thanksgiving, you might have noticed this if you have prayed with me. Offering thanks to God for whatever is at the top of my mind in the moment. I have noticed this about myself, wondered about it a little, but haven’t seriously thought that it was a problem of any kind. I mean, what could be wrong with saying thank you? Nothing at all, I thought, until I really dug into this little parable. The Pharisee at prayer begins with thanks. “I thank you, God, that I am not like other people…the thieves, the rogues, the adulterers, or this tax collector right here beside me. Thank you, God, for making me better.” There it is. Our thankfulness can actually be kind of smug, as we count all the ways our lives are great…enviable. We risk the humble-brag – […]
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Measuring Faith
Luke 17:5-10 There’s a story about a woman who goes into a coffee shop for a little afternoon break. She goes to the counter and gets her coffee and a package of cookies, then looks for a place to sit. The shop is crowded, so she is forced to take a chair at a small table already occupied by a man reading a newspaper. She’s not looking for company, but she sits down with her coffee and package of cookies, gives him a quick smile and nod, then buries herself in her book. She notices out of the corner of her eye that the man reaches out and takes a cookie from the package on the table. Rude, she thinks, but tries to ignore it. She reaches out and takes a cookie for herself. Pretty soon she sees his hand sliding across the table and taking another cookie out of […]
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1 Timothy 2:1-7 I have been asked recently to think about prayer. Our presbytery is beginning a program called Vital Congregations, and in preparation, I was asked to contribute my thoughts on prayer resources, practices, and such. But one of the questions in particular has kept me thinking for days. That is, how has my thinking about prayer changed over time? The assumption, of course, is that it has changed. This is true. No longer are my prayers as they were in childhood. When I was young, I was taught, as so many of us were, to recite short little rhyming prayers – at the dinner table, at bedtime. We might learn to make up our own prayers within certain frameworks – like thank you, God, for lemonade and hula hoops; and God bless mama, daddy, and Tatters the dog. But with maturity comes more freedom and responsibility in all […]
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1 Timothy 1:12-17 What do you say when someone asks you if you have any regrets? Some people will say no. I regret nothing, as Edith Piaf famously sang. But is it really true? When someone asks you if you have any regrets, it feels like they are asking, “Will you tell us about your failures?” But I don’t really want to talk about my failures, do you? Really, though, don’t you have some regrets? If pressed for an answer, you may be tempted to turn it around and make it about someone else, such as, I regret that my kids haven’t turned out the way I wanted them to. Or I regret that the people I have tried to help have not been willing to accept that help. Making it all about someone else’s failures. Not helpful. There is an organization called Failure Lab, which describes itself as being […]
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Philemon I have boxes and drawers filled with piles of letters. Some of them may not be worth keeping, but for others there is no doubt. For example, I have a couple of letters my mother received from her father when she was in college. His words of encouragement to her are a part of our family story that we cherish. If letter-writing is a lost art, that would be a tragedy. Because even though they are set in particular times and circumstances, the subjects of letters are often timeless. I am so glad my mother saved those letters from her father, making them a part of our story. And I am so glad the church saved this letter from Paul because it is an important part of our story. Unlike most of his letters, this is one that sounds almost like a letter we would write. It is not […]
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Luke 14:1,7-14 There is a book called The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois, a remarkable story about slavery and race in America through the centuries. Near the end of the story, an elderly man, Uncle Root, explains to his young niece why he took his wife’s name when they were married in the mid-20th century, instead of asking her to take his name. Born at the beginning of the 20th century, Uncle Root lived for most of his life on the plantation where his ancestors had been enslaved. And during that long period of slavery, it was not uncommon for the master of the house, and other white men, to take advantage of the powerlessness of the enslaved. It was known that many enslaved children were fathered by the master of the house, although they would never be able to call him father. And often these individuals were given the family name of […]
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Luke 13:10-17 One day years ago, over coffee, a friend and I came up with a youth ministry program that we thought might be great. It would use music as a means of gathering kids together, but the method would be to let them self-organize. We were thinking about all the kids we knew who were in bands, or who aspired to be in a band, and would love to have a place where they could gather together and play around with their music. These kids were at a vulnerable stage, trying to figure out who they were. A safe, stable, and caring community that encouraged and affirmed them in their creative endeavors was what they needed, we firmly believed. Neither my friend nor I was a musician, but we were hoping we could just provide the safe place to gather and the freedom to play and learn from each […]
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Luke 12:49-56 Some years ago, I was at a meeting for a national church committee on which I was serving, and during a break in our work I asked one of the other pastors what he was preaching on the next Sunday. That’s how pastors make small talk. He told me he was preaching on Luke 12:49-56, and he was none too happy about it. He told me that he had been avoiding this passage for 30 years. Whenever it came around in the lectionary, he would look for something else to preach on, because this one made him too uncomfortable. But he had reached the point where his avoidance of it was making him even more uncomfortable, so he was going in. He would gird his loins and dive in. It’s a good thing he finally did that, because this is one the church needs to hear, frequently. […]
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Luke 12:32-40 Last week I told you a story about a family that was so caught up in the consumer culture that it just about destroyed them – until, mercifully, they realized they could intentionally back away from it. Disentangle themselves from the consumer treadmill. And one of the first things they did was to sell or give away some of their possessions. In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus told his listeners, “Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” And sometimes we need to get out from under the mountain of our possessions to begin to know that. He told them a parable about a man who was living his life, trying to take care of his stuff, and then out of the blue was told he was a fool for doing that. That his time was up. “Your life is being demanded of you this […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Good Life
Luke 12:13-21 Let me tell you a story. It’s a familiar story. Maybe you know it. A man and a woman fall in love. They realize they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. They begin to talk about a possible future together and what that could look like. So the man begins to make a plan. Searching on Google, he finds “7 Tips for Planning the Perfect Proposal,” and he’s off. He enlists her best friend as his co-conspirator and he scouts out the perfect location to pop the question. He hires a professional photographer who will lurk just out of sight and be ready to capture the big moment. Everything will be shared on their social media accounts – Facebook, Instagram – with tons of “likes” and “Congratulations!” Once they are engaged, the couple begins planning their wedding. They know that the planning phase […]
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