Reward and Punishment
An angel was walking down the street carrying a torch and a pail of water. When asked what he was going to do with torch and pail, the angel said that with the torch he was burning down the mansions
Through the Needle’s Eye
When a rich young man asks what he must do to experience eternal aliveness, and Jesus tells him to sell all he has, and the man walks away with head hung, Jesus tells his friends how hard it is for
We Magi
What is it we’re supposed to see in Christmas? Talk about a mixed message
Growing Small
What does the story of Job have to do with Christmas? Any story is a story about risk. We’ve all been at risk from our first breath, but we don’t like to think of ourselves balanced on a razor’s edge of
Becoming Kingdom
Remember those Russian nesting dolls? Matryoshka dolls, one inside the other, smaller and smaller, but each containing the whole doll. In terms of Jesus’ teaching, the Bible is like this: open the Bible and find the New Testament, and inside
Between Knowing and Loving
Some six hundred years ago, in what has become a classic of Western spirituality, the anonymous English author of The Cloud of Unknowing is trying to show us the only way we can approach God: “No one can fully comprehend
Contemplative Poetry
Have you ever thought of Jesus of Nazareth as a poet? I just asked a roomful of attendees on Sunday morning and got no takers. Truth is, we were not taught and don’t think of Jesus as poet. Jesus remains
Freedom of Vulnerability
What’s the most important verse in scripture? That could be endlessly debated and ultimately impossible to answer unless asked this way: what is the most important verse in scripture to you? And once it becomes personal, it most likely becomes
Real Revival
We are fast on track to becoming a post-Christian country. Recent stats show that only 36% of the youngest among us, Millennials and Gen Z, have any church membership as opposed to Boomers at 58% and those born before 1946
Interior Revolution
Fourth of July, 2021. Two hundred and forty fifth anniversary of what? Start of the revolution? Birth of the US? Signing the Declaration of Independence? The revolution started a year before, the Constitution wouldn’t be adopted for another twenty, and
