Luke 10:38-42 (online here) I have a friend who these days teaches religion at one of the "Little Ivy League" colleges. He's a bit embarrassed to recall how enthusiastic he was back in the days of the Jesus Movement—you know, that time [...]

Luke 10:25-37 (online here)  Don't you wish the rest of the Bible focused on love as much as today's Gospel lesson? You can read passage after passage, or just try listening to the readings on Sunday morning, and more often than not [...]

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 (online here) One of the most popular buzzwords being tossed about by church leaders today is “missional.” What does it mean—“missional”? Sometimes, when I read the literature, it seems to mean misusing an adjective as a noun. You find [...]

Luke 9:51-62 (online here) When Luke jotted down this episode in this week’s Gospel reading, he was trying to make it come alive for people in his generation. So it wouldn’t hurt to try retelling it today in more contemporary terms. Try [...]

Galatians 3:23-29 (online here); Luke 8:26-39 (online here) Back in Jesus’ time, if you found yourself pulled apart by forces beyond anybody’s control, you might call those forces demons and turn to an exorcist for treatment. Nowadays, we call these forces moods and [...]

Readings for Trinity Sunday online here. The Sunday after Pentecost is known as Trinity Sunday. I never quite know how people will react to that news. Over the years on this day, more often than not, I’ve heard preacher after preacher studiously [...]

Acts 2:1-21 (online here) Who knows what to do with the Holy Spirit? Mystery writer Dorothy Sayers once wrote a tongue-in-cheek catechism back in the 1940s, where she tried to imagine what typical members of the Church of England might answer if [...]

John 17:20-26 (online here) Jesus prayed to God that all his followers “may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.” He was not praying for an end to all our [...]

Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 (online here) As I’ve mentioned before, the bizarre visions of John of Patmos almost didn’t make it into the New Testament. People were still debating whether to include it for several centuries. But it did get included. Today’s reading [...]

John 13:31-35 (online here)Here’s Jesus at his last supper. Judas has left the building. It ought to be a somber time, but Jesus sounds pretty upbeat—God’s life in him is glorified even in betrayal. And then he says, “Oh, by the way, [...]