“Have mercy on us.” What a cry that is. It echoes down the ages of human history, showing up in our literature as early as The Iliad, almost three millennia ago, where Greek orTrojan warriors, defeated on the battlefield, helpless before their foe, cry out for mercy, a futile cry in the heat of battle where it mostly goes unheeded. Amongst us humans, mercy can sometimes be in short supply.
Read MoreWhen I read this week’s texts, I could relate in a very keen and particular way to what was being expressed. It seems as though I have become so quickly connected here that it pained me to go there. Today’s readings in Lamentations, “She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her…” Or the reading from 2nd Timothy, “Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy,” offer a glimpse of feelings that are about loss, separation, pain and grief.
Read MoreMost folks, in talking about this story, never think about the wisdom in it, because they can’t get over the dishonesty. The fellow belongs in jail, folks say, and they dismiss the story in disgust. In Jesus’ eyes, making friends with the poor by means of ‘unrighteous mammon’ is wise, because in the realm of God’s holiness, the poor are beloved far more than the rich. And so we store up treasure in heaven when we help the poor. Jesus doesn’t stipulate a narrow path for righteous help. Nor does he forbid righteousness to sinners.
Read More“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” I love that line, partly because now that we’re in such an enlightened age, what with three hundred years of science and a hundred fifty years of biblical criticism, history seems to have brought about a great reversal, so that now it’s the fool who says, “there is a God.”
Read More"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple…” What the heck is Jesus talking about here? I will tell you that I don’t know. Not at all, at least not in my first glance of this reading. And so I read it and read it and I shared it with at least 4 different friends during the week and at least 5 different sets of hikers got to get in on the conversation, mostly at the dinner table when we were sharing a meal.
Read MoreMy experience of hospitality and welcome recently, I have had the most wonderful opportunity to open my home, and our church home, to hikers this, my first summer here in the Upper Valley. I had the privilege of having many, many hikers come and stay in my home. We had just three folks on Friday night, $10 Dollar Chocolate from Colorado, Jordan from North Carolina and Arielle from Texas. Our guests “zeroed,” which means that they came and stayed Friday night, and didn’t hike at all on Saturday and stayed Saturday night too.
Read MoreHow can I as family, or how can we as church, love them well enough, model God’s love, Jesus’ love for these children of God? That is our greatest calling as Christians, to love God and to love one another… One of my favorite stories is actually a song. Well most of my very favorite stories are songs. This song one of a life lived with a very simple way of living with God’s love at its center.
Read MoreWe are so used to thinking of Jesus as the merciful one, the reconciler, the peacemaker, the forgiver of sins, the one who turns the other cheek. And yet the church also remembers Jesus talking this contrary way: talking of division, talking of violence, talking of bringing fire.
Read MoreI am so grateful to be home. I cannot express the amazing joy I feel deep inside to be home and to call this place of such beauty and gift, home. For me, part of that ‘knowledge, a feeling, an assurance that even in the midst of that pain or doubt or suffering, God is good’ is in being so privileged as to live in a place that calls to many, many, people from all around the country and even the world to come and explore, walk through or journey through.
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