There are some questions that are not really questions. They are traps. We know them when we hear them. Someone asks a question not because they are curious, not because they want to understand, but because they have already decided that whatever answer you give will be used against you. That is what happens to […]

I have to be quite honest. There is really very little about this parable that I like. “The weeping and gnashing of teeth” is one of my least favorite phrases in all of Scripture, and Matthew seems particularly fond of it. It appears six times in Matthew, once in Luke, and not at all in […]

There is a vineyard. Someone has planted it, put a fence around it, dug a winepress, built a watchtower, and entrusted it to tenants. And everything in Jesus’ parable turns on one simple fact: The vineyard does not belong to the tenants. They have been entrusted with it. They are responsible for it. They are […]

There are passages of Scripture that comfort us, and there are passages that unsettle us. And sometimes, if we are willing to stay with them long enough, the unsettling passages may have more to teach us. Today’s Gospel is one of those passages. It begins with Jesus speaking about purity. The religious controversy of the […]

Immediately after feeding a multitude with five loaves and two fish, Jesus makes the disciples get into a boat. “Make” is almost too gentle a word. The Greek verb suggests that Jesus compelled them, constrained them, practically forced them into the boat. This is not a pleasant invitation to take an evening cruise. Jesus puts […]

“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says. “I am coming to you.” It is one of the tenderest promises in John’s Gospel. And it comes at a moment when tenderness is desperately needed. Jesus is speaking to his friends on the night before he dies. The table has been shared. Feet have been washed. […]