Unbridling Our Attention

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]

I Do Not Know You

“Afterwards the other virgins came and said, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us!’  But he said in reply, ‘Amen I say to you.  I do not know you.’ Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour!” Matthew 25: 11-13 For me, some of the most frightening words of the scriptures are[read more]

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said, “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.” Judges 11: 30-31 Some ignored the[read more]

To Each Individual

There are different kinds of gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. 1 Corinthians 12: 4-7 Yesterday I was[read more]

Goodness and Holiness

In his book on Teresa of Avila, Rowan Williams describes Teresa’s view of “good” people who occupy the third mansions of her interior castle. He notes that for Teresa, “To be ‘good’ without humility is to be condemned to a really wretched life, ‘weighed down with this mud of our human misery.’” Saul is a zealot of the first order. He believes that these disciples of Jesus are a threat to the primacy of the Law, to the necessary order of an orthodox Jewish life. They are a disturbance to the order and the peace of an obedient and well-ordered[read more]

None Dared Ask Him

Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.”  And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are  you?” because they realized it was the Lord.  Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish.  This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his[read more]

Learning and Speaking

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets. I was a shepherd and a dresser of  sycamores.  The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now  hear the word of the Lord!” Amos 7:14-16 “Why do you[read more]

Love and Not Sacrifice

First he says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delight in.”  These are offered according to the law.  Then he says, “Behold, I come to to do your will.”  He takes away the first to establish the second.  By this “will,” we have been consecrated through the offering of the[read more]

The Ways of Love

“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark[read more]

We Proclaim What We Have Seen and Heard

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life—for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible[read more]