I love Advent. It is a season that invites us to hope that God is not only still active in our world but will again join us in our world when Jesus returns. The plea in Isaiah for God to act in a world that is unjust sits so poignantly in the middle of the […]
A New Testament professor taught me that parables should surprise us. Not in a jump-scare sort of surprise, but in a way the reveals to us the work God is interested and involved in. Today’s parable hasn’t surprised me for awhile. So I dug into it this week and, as I’d hoped, God was still […]
This is a week of complex readings. We get all the tension between Joshua and the people and all our confusion over Jesus’s parable about the bridesmaids. But I think by putting to texts in conversation with each other we can begin to understand some of the wisdom of these parables. I worked most closely […]
One of the ways I’m staying sane in through this pandemic is by knitting more. And it’s amazing to me how well the things even I make hold together because of the physics of knitting. Today we pray that God’s people are knit together. I had some thoughts about that: I worked most closely with […]
I was really taken by Paul’s tone in 1 Thessalonians. It really felt like a peek into a close and loving relationship. Then, during Bible Study this week, I started to wonder, what if this was were we based our evangelism. Or maybe it already was… I worked most closely with 1 Thessalonians 2.1-8.
Sabbath is not something I’m necessarily good at. I remembering finding one of my schedules from High School and … I’ve never been good at Sabbath. Sabbath is rest, but not collapsing at the end of a day, or a shift. It’s having a world where you can be free to be with God. Which […]
I preached my way into the realization that one of my bedrock beliefs is that God honours our struggle. And I don’t know if I remembered to say that during this sermon, but I wanted to talk about some of the struggles we tend to forget existed in the times Scripture tells us about. You […]
Rules aren’t always my favourite. I can rankle against being told to just do a thing. (Understanding the reasoning why often helps this.) But community is one of my favourite things. Which means, as Jesus talks about, figuring out how to live with people who do things that I wouldn’t do. All this, plus some […]
I have long loved this Psalm. But my food oriented youtube rabbit hole had me wondering where the oil comes from. And that got me thinking about the community and theology behind this. Listen to what I said: I worked with Psalm 133 (link).
I love Peter trying and failing to walk on water. I do. But this year it wasn’t preaching for me. Instead I kept hearing this joke that’s sometimes funny and that I’ve never really liked. The work of holding it in conversation and prayer with this passage brought me to a question: Do I believe […]