You are the salt of the earth. . . You are the light of the world. I want you to listen to these words from Jesus very closely. They are so familiar to us that it is easy to miss the profound message in them. You are the salt of the earth. . . You […]
On Thursday this past week, when both my children were finally back in school after 10 days of illness and I was trying to awaken my own illness-recovering brain, I spied an email sent to me by someone I hadn’t heard from in a long time (not anyone from St. Andrew’s). This person was sending […]
When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” John 1:38 Very frequently when someone comes to meet with me to talk about a personal concern, I begin our time together by asking, “What brings you here today?” Or to put it another way, “How can I help […]
Whether we call ourselves Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Mormon, Sikh, Agnostic, Atheist, Consumerist, Secularist, Humanist, or whatever, we follow a religion. All human beings are innately religious. We are made to be religious. The dictionary defines religion as, “1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.” […]
Over the past few years, I have noticed that a new expression has entered the everyday speech of many Americans: “Living your best life.” There are hundreds and hundreds of self-help books carrying this title or this phrase within their titles. If you google the phrase, you will get millions of results for websites and […]
Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.[1] My spiritual practice during Advent this year was to read Richard Rohr’s book, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis Assisi. Rohr is an American Franciscan priest […]
The God I know through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is a God who desperately wants to get our attention. This God that our ancestors in the faith wrote about in our sacred writings is not a God who is distant or uncaring. The Divine one portrayed in the pages of our Bible is passionately […]
Last week we heard the story of John the Baptist appearing in the desert to proclaim repentance and announce the coming of the Messiah. I have always admired this portrait of John the Baptist. He is courageous and fiery. He is as “prophety” as you can get. He’s a prophet’s prophet you might say. But […]
Here we are at the end of the season of Pentecost. For many months now we have been walking with Jesus during his earthly ministry. We have seen him teach, preach, pray, heal, and challenge. Next week we begin again with Advent as we wait in hope and expectation for Jesus’ birth and when we […]
“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. . . . The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox. . .” This passage from Isaiah is one of my favorite passages in […]