We can’t pick and choose only the easy work that Jesus calls us to do—we must also do the “But I Don’t Wanna!” work. Turning the other cheek when we are hurting, and recognizing when we have hurt someone. Turning the other cheek does not mean ignoring what has happened and continuing to be hurt. […]

When Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor,” everything we typically think about economics, politics, and faith is turned upside down. Do we dare to believe him?

When Jesus sits down in a boat to teach, it is when the holy space goes out of the synagogue and into the world.

We wonder how a story can go sour so dramatically and so quickly. Jesus is speaking with much approval to his hometown synagogue, where he had been shaped and formed, then the next minute they are trying to push him off of a cliff. What can cause such a flash of rage? The radical inclusivity […]

During the Scientific Revolution, the 19th Psalm was popular for showing the “Two Books” that reveal God – Nature and the Scriptures. Verse 1 points to the heavens as telling God’s glory and v.7 point to the the law that perfects it. The 9th verse suggests a third book – the feeling of awe before […]

The story of Jesus turning water into wine is well known. We often think of the story as a “Look! See how amazing Jesus is!” story. In the story itself Jesus lets others do all the work and another person makes the key statement that, in Christ, God is doing a new and marvelous thing.

When we listen to the story of Jesus’ baptism and think about our own baptism, we wonder where the practice of baptism came from and what it means. The better question is, “Where is the Spirit”?

Remembering Pumbaa and Timon, lying on their backs, describing the stars as either “fireflies stuck in that blueish-black thing up there” or “burning balls of gas billions of miles away.” What’s missing is wonder. The story of the Magi offer us a chance to recover wonder as part of our way of encountering the stars.

Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches!”  As we celebrate Christ’s birth, we contemplate what it means to be part of Jesus’ vine (His branches) and to be connected to women in Jesus’ lineage, like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.From these roots, we learn that God makes even the seemingly […]

In the last of our “From These Roots” series, focused on the four women identified in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, we hear the story of Bathsheba, whom Matthew doesn’t name. Bathsheba’s story is told terribly, it is remembered terribly, and it is terribly familiar.