26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, RCL)

In an uncertain, murky time, God gives the people a gift: ten laws.

Minister and veteran David Peters invites us to consider our own post-traumatic identities in a new light. 

In the Hebrew Bible, God’s love is maternal.

The first step of repentance is telling the truth about ourselves.

Maybe the shock of Jesus’ words is the point.

I regularly pray for things that are unlikely to come about quickly, if at all.

Last year I was told I needed to be on a high-sodium diet for medical reasons.

Jesus is pretty clear: we should mind our own spiritual business.

Esther's story would be infuriating if it wasn't so over-the-top ridiculous.

According to Jesus, chances are good that there's not going to be much left of us once we've admitted to just how often stumbling blocks stand in our way. Whether others put them there or we find ways to place them ourselves, they trip us up, keep us from moving forward, get us off track.

At this point in Mark, stumbling blocks seem a necessary point for conversation. We are good at placing them in others’ paths, and even better at setting them before ourselves.

James reminds us of the duplicity of language, like a matchstick dropped by singed fingers that leaves behind charred acres. The deception of language is that we believe it is innocent.

My Dad was a pastor. He began his ministry in the early 50’s, when mainline churches were growing like weeds and a clerical collar would elicit a discount at the local department store and a complementary membership in the country club.

Not so for my son, who has also worked a pastor. He paid full price for his coffee at Starbucks, where he led discussions with Millennials who wouldn’t dream of darkening the door of his grandfather’s church.

If Moses is any example, the pastor’s yoke was never light. He wasn’t very far into his 40-year pastorate when he learned that his flock did not feel called to provide him with constant affirmation.

When Jesus' disciples imitate Joshua, the irony is delicious: they have just spectacularly failed to cast out the demon troubling a boy from childhood.

I believe that prayer can heal, and I’ve witnessed miraculous healings in my own pastorates. So why was I, cast into extremis by a chainsaw, reluctant to pray?