Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus trying to get away. Matthew tells us that Jesus withdrew by boat to a deserted place. He had just learned that John the Baptist had been murdered by Herod. John—Jesus’ cousin, teacher, baptizer, and fellow prophet—had been executed because he dared to speak truth to power. Jesus must have been […]
“The kingdom of heaven is like…” Again and again, Jesus begins with those words. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast hidden in flour. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine […]
There is blood on the ground in Biddeford. On Monday morning, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero left his home to go to work. He was a young Colombian immigrant. A husband. A father. A man working two jobs to care for his family. He had authorization to work in this country and a Social Security number […]
Abraham is the father of three great religious traditions. We know him as the faithful man who, at the age of 75, answered God’s call to leave his native land and to journey with his wife to a place he had never seen. We know him as the man who became a father long after […]
Matthew tells us that Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. It is a sweeping sentence, almost like a refrain. This is what Jesus does. He teaches, proclaims and heals. But then Matthew slows down. Jesus […]
Jesus is walking along when he sees a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth. That is how the story begins: with a man sitting. Matthew is not sitting in a neutral place. He is sitting at the tax booth, a place where money is taken, where empire reaches into ordinary households, where the […]
There are some conversations we are not meant to overhear: a whispered exchange in a hospital hallway, a late-night phone call, a prayer murmured at a bedside. And yet sometimes, by accident or by grace, we do overhear something. And what we hear changes us, because in hearing it we discover what someone truly carries […]
On the evening of Easter Day, the disciples are not radiant. They are not brave. They are not in the streets proclaiming good news. They are behind locked doors. That is where John wants us to find them: shut in, afraid, uncertain. The resurrection has already happened. Mary Magdalene has already said, “I have seen […]