James speaks as a realist. He recognizes the specific hindrances that block our faith, and he calls them out for us. Ego and anger, James knows, are two serious impediments to...

Pay attention to the words people speak as you get ready to walk out the door,” our chaplain supervisors advised us during our training as student chaplains. And sure enough, they...

Jesus doesn’t shy away from speaking graphically. He says to his listeners: “Unless you eat [my] flesh and drink [my] blood, you have no life in you.” This language and idea...

Jesus feeds a crowd of five thousand, and then he walks on water. When he calls out to the disciples, “It is I; do not be afraid,” we know Jesus offers...

A spate of ads on TV has promoted home security systems. An intruder gets scared away by a siren and a recorded warning voice. I have at times thought of investing...

The second part of the psalm mentions “a doorkeeper in the house of my God.” I think of doorkeepers as a cross between ushers and custodians. While I was in seminary,...

This psalm is a song sung by pilgrims who yearn for God’s presence. After a long and arduous journey, what can be better than to arrive in “the courts of the...

Solomon is wise enough to know that the house of prayer receives blessing only when it opens itself and welcomes the “foreigner” and outsiders from “a distant land.” For Israel, this...

Jesus’ forbears had an ambivalent relationship with temples and houses of worship. On the one hand, the human impulse to “contain” God led to shrines and tabernacles on a grand scale....

When Jesus starts talking about his body as bread and his blood as drink, the people are understandably perplexed, and perhaps a bit mortified. The apostle Paul explains it this way,...