What the Samaritan did NOT do is just as striking as what he did. You know the story: an expert in Judaic law asks Jesus what is God’s expectation, the “greatest” commandment? Jesus replies with “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. This prompts the follow up,...
One of the great deceptions many dying churches believe is that they don't need to make any significant changes; they just need a pastor to help them continue doing what they have always done.
Whether on the stage of world history or in the individual human heart, the reign or rule of God is like seed growing of itself: pregnant, mysterious, fruitful. As a man scattering seed on the ground, we work at preaching and teaching, at supporting each other, at...
The authors of the Bible did not have enough faith in humankind to believe that unrestrained pursuit of self-interest would promote common welfare. ...Government is the only power of the poor. It is not an intruder on the happy campers on the economic field....
I personally know a family whose most meaningful Christmas truly embraced its spirit. [In 1986 this family thought of a needy family in their congregation that was struggling just to survive.] The parents and their two children discussed together how to help this...
Being numbered among the “least of these” is a condition, not just in childhood, but at any stage in life when we are out of control, weak, needy, and dependent. In taking a child in his arms, in placing the child at the forefront of his disciples, Jesus made an...
Thank God, God is more ready to forgive than to punish. Thank God, Jesus made it quite clear that he had come to be with and to help those in need. “Those who are well do not need a physician,” he said, “but those who are ill.” Jesus said those are the ones he had...
It’s strange. We think of ourselves as needing him but we don’t think of Jesus as needing us. Yet we believe he sacrificed himself for us while we give little thought to the fact that real communion requires us to also sacrifice ourselves for him… Usually it is a...
The mounting rhythms of time, the gathering passion of godhead pervading earth’s body erupt, ecstatic, unbounded…no fiery deluge, no fist-clenching rapture. No star-strewn apocalypse. Only a woman laboring. Only the needy cry of child in the dark. Glory is not what we...