Switching on the lectern light and clearing his throat, the preacher speaks both the word of tragedy and the word of comedy because they are both of them of the truth and because Jesus speaks them both, blessed be he. The preacher tells the truth by speaking of the...
01309 – Salvation is Both Personal and Social
Salvation is personal, but this hardly needs emphasis... What does need emphasis is that Salvation in the Bible is also social. Ancient Israel's story is a story of the creation of a new people, a nation, a community. Salvation is about life together. Salvation is...
01053 – Unconditional Love vs. Unconditional Approval
We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn’t approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict...
00977 – Peace: The Presence of Love
For Jesus, peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle but the presence of love. from Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
00021 – Gospel as Silence
Let us then tell the truth. Before the Gospel is a word, it is silence. It is the silence of our own lives, of your life and my life. It is life with the sound turned off so that for a moment or two you can experience it, not in terms of the words you make it bearable...
00016 – Awareness of God’s Presence
We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. …To become aware of God’s presence in our lives, we have to...