In today’s familiar parable of “The Great Feast,” Jesus tells of a master who invites many of his friends and acquaintances to a great feast, but they are all too busy, for one reason or another, to accept his invitation. So, in a rage, he tells his servant to go out and to invite those on the street, the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.” What so enrages the master is that those he wanted to come to the feast he was offering were all too busy for him. It is the disregarded, the outcasts, the poor…[read more]
For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! Romans 11:32-33 Then he said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do…[read more]
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through…[read more]
We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:22-3 “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is…[read more]
So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in…[read more]
Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Luke 12:35-7 Today, Luke has Jesus tell us that to live in discipleship means to be…[read more]
In the United States we are currently (although now it seems most of the time) in a political season. As we attend to those seeking the presidency, we find ourselves once again attempting to appraise who among those seeking office is truly capable of leadership as service to the nation. As we read Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees according to Luke, we can hear a stern warning about the kind of ambition in all of us that would make us poor leaders, and so, by contrast, what makes for a true leader in gospel terms.…[read more]
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Romans 1:25 Today is the feast of the great St. Teresa of Avila. In his brief summary of her life, Robert Ellsberg says: “By any standard she was one of the towering figures…[read more]
Globally speaking we live in an anxious time. While we had once expected that technology would make of us a “global village” and then later on with the fall of the Soviet Union that we had arrived at “the end of history,” we discover our world politics seem governed more than ever by nationalism and xenophobia. Despite the fact that we are growing in information about the world, we seem to be feeling more and more that we are strangers to each other.…[read more]
Alas, the day! / for near is the day of the Lord, / and it comes as ruin from the Almighty.Blow the trumpet in Zion, / sound the alarm on my holy mountain! / Let all who dwell in the land tremble, / for the day of the Lord is coming; / Yes, it is…[read more]
In today’s familiar parable of “The Great Feast,” Jesus tells of a master who invites many of his friends and acquaintances to a great feast, but they are all too busy, for one reason or another, to accept his invitation. So, in a rage, he tells his servant to go out and to invite those on the street, the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.” What so enrages the master is that those he wanted to come to the feast he was offering were all too busy for him. It is the disregarded, the outcasts, the poor…[read more]
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