Scripture -

Isaiah 58:1-9a

Just about everyone has a story to tell about the first time God let you down.  Maybe you were 8, 10, or 20 years old.  You did everything right, just the way you had been taught.  You knelt by your bed, clasped your hands in...

Scripture - Matthew 5:1-12

Have you ever stood on your head?  I’ve never been good at it, but when I was young a neighborhood friend was great at it.  Just about everything in the world was taller than he was, taller & very boring he would say, but by...

Scripture -

Matthew 4:12-23

Before Louis Pasteur, rabies meant certain death – not just in the human imagination, but also in diagnosis.  Then, in the latter half of the 1800s, Pasteur figured out something of what was going on with just one thing: mic...

Scripture - Isaiah 49:1-7

No one knows for sure who this ‘servant’ was.  Isaiah had a way of getting so wrapped up in what God was giving him to say that he all but lost track of who he was.  Like an actor who loves the play he is in so much that he c...

Scripture - Matthew 3:13-17

We don’t think about it much, but for most of us, one thing that brings us to church on Sunday is the fact that we were baptized.  Some of us were baptized without being given any choice in the matter.  Cries at the baptism...

Scripture -

Titus 2:11-14

Shortly after the Russian revolution, a group of journalists & social commentators paid a visit to the newly formed Soviet Union to see how the revolutionaries were getting along in establishing a new type of society.  They we...

Scripture -

James 5:7-11

Having addressed the heartless conduct of the rich previously in his letter, James now sets out to encourage those struggling through the difficulties of life by calling for patience and endurance.

< Read 5:7-8 >

The rich and po...

Scripture -

Matthew 3:1-10

On this second Sunday of Advent, the lectionary calls us to anticipate the arrival of that righteous shoot from the line of Jesse who will judge the poor with equity, punish the wicked & bring about a supernatural & incredibl...

Scripture:  Colossians 1:15-20

I grabbed the remote to turn on the television.  I didn’t know what the program would be; I was tired at the end of a long day & just wanted to relax for a few minutes.

The sound came on briefly before the picture appeare...

Scripture: 

Thessalonians 3:6-13

Brothers & sisters don’t get discouraged in doing what is right. 2 Thessalonians 3:13

It's been twenty-six weeks of "ordinary time" since the last church feast day on Pentecost Sunday — an entire half-year.  Next week we...