Tonight we come to one of the holiest, tenderest, and most uncomfortable nights of the Christian year. Maundy Thursday brings us into an upper room, into a borrowed space, into the final intimate hours before betrayal, arrest, violence, and death. It is a night of bread and wine. A night...

John’s ninth chapter begins with a man sitting by the roadside, a man born blind, and almost immediately the people around him begin talking about him rather than to him. The disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is a cruel...

There are some stories in the Bible that have not only been read but used—used against people. Used to warn the vulnerable that if they are not careful, the church will make an example of them. This story of the Samaritan woman at the well is one of those stories....