Maybe it was the red-eye flight from Phoenix last night. Maybe it was going from 80 degree sunshine to 20 degree spitting snow. Or maybe it was a 1:00 am bedtime after the late flight, or the lack of enough caffeine to jump start the day. Or maybe it was the outcome in New Hampshire as the drama of the year moves south to the Carolinas. Or maybe it was reading Psalm 51 and having ashes smeared on my forehead in chapel this morning on this Ash Wednesday.
February 10, 2016 By Leave a Comment
January 30, 2015 By Leave a Comment
The Cruel Art of Labeling
Labeling can stop a conversation.
Like the old children’s game, Pin the Tail On the Donkey, once the donkey is properly pinned, the game is won. If the enemy can be properly labeled or mislabeled, the verdict for destruction is in place.
This is not new. They called Jesus a friend of sinners, a glutton, and a drunkard. They called him a blasphemer. They suggested that he was somehow a threat to Rome and that anyone who looked the other way would be “no friend of Caesar’s.” Few of these “labelers” ever had a sit-down face-to-face with Jesus. They just knew he was dangerous. They were right. If his understanding of the world were to prevail, it would turn the world as they knew it upside down.
December 5, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Forgive Us, As We Forgive
We become profoundly human when we are willing to confess that we were wrong, that we have sinned, and that we need forgiveness.
Forgive us our
debts/trespasses/sins
as we forgive our
debtors/trespassers/sinners.”
What is being said here? Sometimes scripture is the best commentary on scripture. Jesus tells a remarkable parable in Matthew 18:21-35.
Peter is asking Jesus how many times he has to forgive one of the brothers for sinning against him. He even suggests the answer: seven times. Since seven is the perfect, whole, complete number, this ought to be enough. Jesus should congratulate him on being so magnanimously forgiving. The Pharisees drew the line at three, then ka-pow! Jesus raised the ante. Not seven times, but seventy times seven or seventy-seven times—not sure which, but both are a lot more than seven. But the real answer to Peter’s question is not in the number, but in the parable that follows. It goes like this.
