In 2014 I had the chance to spend a week with a group of leaders from the underground church in Iran. The Americans were assigned to be their teachers at a...

What does it mean to run a race surrounded by witnesses? In the first Olympics of modern times in 1896, the crowd not only cheered but literally surrounded one runner. The...

Too many of us have grabbed hold of the notion that people of faith are perfect, unwavering examples to be lifted up because of their endless strengths. Actually, reading the Bible...

Today’s setting feels like déjà vu all over again to those of us who spent the last two days in Isaiah 5. We’re back on the farm. Once again Israel is...

Today we learn the outcome of the gardener’s investment of care. When he harvests the grapes, they are not the sweet, wholesome fruit for which he prepared. They are wild grapes,...

Love often takes the shape of preparation. A young man showers and shaves and washes his car as he thinks of a date with his beloved later that day. A mother-to-be...

Live in readiness. Be dressed for action. Keep your batteries charged. Jesus does not equate waiting with doing nothing. Life is lived in the present, and Jesus has just instructed the...

“Do not be afraid.” The angel’s words to Zechariah and then to Mary in Luke 1 appear again on Jesus’ lips in today’s reading. These words and variations of them appear...

The writer as storyteller spends the rest of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews naming people of faith who put their trust in God in myriad circumstances. This week’s lectionary reading speaks...

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews, whom scholars believe is not Paul, is a theologian and a storyteller. The eleventh chapter begins by setting out the direction and the...