God Comes in Surprise - Reflections on Acts 16:16-34
Among many other characteristics of the God we worship, the chief one is divine actions when we least expect them, actions that often amaze and astound, appearing as they do in common forms.
The Manifest Dangers of Money - Reflections on Acts 16:9-15
It is a well-known fact that Luke’s Gospel and his 2nd volume Book of the Acts are, rather more than the other Gospels, quite concerned with the perils of wealth and its possible misuse.
Fully Open to the Spirit - Reflections on Acts 11:1-18
Today’s text thrusts us directly into the enormously consequential narrative of Peter’s confrontation with the Holy Spirit that forces him to rethink everything he has learned and practiced as a first-century Jew.
Our Turn! - Reflections on Joshua 5:9-12
This Lenten season, the call for justice is sounded loud and clear as we are reminded that Lent is both a time for self-examination and a time for allowing that examination to lead to engagement with our human siblings in a search for righteousness and justice.
The Surprising Blessing - Reflections on Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
This Lent I wished to focus on issues of justice and righteousness in the community, rather than in individual spirituality or getting closer to God on our own. What this odd chapter adds to that emphasis is the significance of a God who simply cannot be penned in or defined in ways that allow that God to be approached by traditional means of religious activity.
Great Solace Amid Great Pain - Reflections on Isaiah 43:1-7
In Isaiah we find a brilliant representation of that most basic and uncanny statement of God’s hallowed promise to us all: there is, in the end, no death, no exile, no pain, no hopelessness, in which God may not find life in it.
The Boy Samuel: A Poor Jesus Analogy? - Reflections on 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
It is more than obvious why this passage from 1 Samuel is regularly chosen by the collectors of the lectionary to suggest the analogy between the service and growth of the child Samuel in the temple, and the apparently similar early life of the child Jesus.
What Are We Waiting For? - Reflections on Zephaniah 3:14-20
In the midst of this unrestrained litany of salaciousness, Zephaniah speaks hope. The prophet enacts in his final words the very essence of the gospel of God, the announcement of hope when none appears at all likely or possible.
Must Reads Classics – Performing the Word: Preaching as Theatre by Jana Childers
Welcome to Must Reads Classics with the Rev. Dr. Jana Childers, Newhall Professor of Homiletics and Speech Communication, Graduate School of Theology, University of Redlands. Dr. Childers talks about her book “Performing the Word: Preaching as Theatre.”
Joy Without Context - Reflections on Baruch 5:1-9
We hope for and long for the coming of the Christ child who comes to us in “mercy and righteousness,” long promised in the Hebrew Bible and echoed in Baruch.
The Reign of Christ - Reflections on 2 Samuel 23:1-7
The Sunday before the first Sunday in Advent has long been designated “Christ the King” Sunday. The Sunday is seen as a prefiguring, a premonition, of the coming of the Christ child into the world.
Whose Voice Are You Listening To? - Reflections on John 18:33-37
In all four gospels, Jesus is portrayed as persistently resisting the efforts of others to define him, to tell him who he has to be, to force him into existing categories.
