Do you remember that old commercial for Memorex cassette tapes where Ella Fitzgerald shattered a glass with her voice, and the voice over asked “Is it live or is it Memorex?” The selling point was that Memorex cassette tapes could reproduce sound so clearly and truly that it was hard to tell the difference between … [Read more…]
Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, August 18, 2019 I was in kind of a quandary choosing hymns for this Sunday. There aren’t many hymns to the scorched-earth God, or many that plead with God to “lay that hammer down, boy!” Our hymnal—and, I think, our entire tradition of hymns—contains precious few hymns about the transforming power … [Read more…]
Eighth Sunday After Pentecost: August 11, 2019 Some Sundays all of the lectionary texts fit together so perfectly that it is hard to choose what to preach on. And as you all know by now, every Bible passage is my favorite! “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them[,” … [Read more…]
Eighth Sunday After Pentecost: August 4, 2019 When our kids were toddlers one of our favorite books to read to them was The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown. To this day it is still one of our favorite baby gifts when our nieces and nephews have children. Maybe y’all remember it: a little bunny … [Read more…]
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost: July 28, 2019 Over twenty years ago, when I was serving an internship at a small Presbyterian church in Benson, NC, the church’s Sunday school class was working its way through a video series called Genesis: A Living Conversation. It was an exploration of 10 stories from Genesis hosted by Bill … [Read more…]
Sixth Sunday After Pentecost: July 21, 2019 Jesus is playing referee and Martha is down for the count! Every time I read this story I can’t help but think that it ends with a smack down, and Martha is the one lying defeated on the mat. Now, I realize that we are not supposed to … [Read more…]
Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, July 7, 2019 What is the miracle of the story of Naaman? Is it the healing of his leprosy? Is it the aversion of war with Syria? Is it the conversion of a man from the worship of Syrian gods to the worship of the one true God of Israel? All … [Read more…]
Third Sunday After Pentecost, June 30, 2019 I am a terrible student of history! It has always been my worst subject. Although I love stories and have spent all of my academic life studying old things, like Latin, Old English, Greek, Hebrew, the Bible, I just cannot get the hang of history. It seems so … [Read more…]
Day of Pentecost, June 9, 2019 The first time I traveled to a place where I didn’t speak the language and it really mattered was January, 2008. Now, I had been to Denmark many years earlier. But there it didn’t really matter: everyone in Denmark speaks English—and several other languages—so I was never in a … [Read more…]
Second Sunday after Pentecost: June 23, 2019 It has been said that the antidote to fear is gratitude. The most frightened I have ever been was back in the winter of 1985. Chris and I had just bought our first car from his parents in Rochester Hills, MI, and were driving it back to Binghamton, … [Read more…]