Faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord finds expression in one's commitment to the ultimate authority of Love to which he bears witness in the world. Without this commitment, Lord is an empty title, but to make this faith commitment has vast practical implications. If...
Today We Honor Women in Ministry My pilgrimage can be described rather simply and easily. Basically, the scenario goes like this: I listened to the Story, and I believed. When as a child the community of faith told me Jesus loved me and when they demonstrated that...
One of the striking things about evangelical corporate worship in our times is the evident paucity of Scripture. There is relatively little Scripture read, prayed, or sung in our assemblies. While high liturgical traditions continue to infuse services with scriptural...
Who, then, is the ultimately guilty one in this fiasco of the cross? Have we, even now, glimpsed the full dimensions of the crisis hanging over human history? …Clearly, as he hangs alone in desolation on the cross, and then is buried in the cold, malodorous...
Next to the calling of the disciples, I expect that Matthew’s story about their sending forth is one of the most confrontational stories in all the Bible. Can you imagine? There you are, perfectly content to be a follower, when Jesus comes home all worn out one day...
It dawned on me that even my best theological and spiritual formation had not been able to completely free me from a Father God who remained somewhat threatening and somewhat fearsome. All I had learned about the Father’s love had not fully enabled me to let go of an...
I think that’s one reason why you are here this morning. You are looking for answers to life’s big questions, searching for reasons why, groping for some discernible pattern in the confusion. We’ve been bombarded with information, facts, and figures. We don’t need any...
It is customary to blame secularism for the eclipse of religion in modern society. But it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When...
As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion. That authority comes from letting the sins of his children pierce his heart. There is no lust, greed, anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeance in his lost children that has not caused...