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Election Week Blessing
Because I wanted to be cool like Nadia Bolz-Weber (just kidding―I’ll never be as cool as Nadia!) and write some blessings of my own. (Check out Nadia’s beautiful “Blessed are the Agnostics” piece here, if you like. It’s really lovely.) These words are loosely inspired by the beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), and much less loosely inspired…
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Women, I Would Like to Call Forth
Women, I Would Like to Call Forth Women, I would like to call forth your holy anger. Let it rattle the sidings of your churches―the ones that keep telling you to serve, but do not serve you well. Let it be no longer held constrained within your bones in bonds unspoken, swept beneath the doormat…
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Mini-sermon: A Different Kind of Power
I had the chance this last weekend to share a 7-8 minute mini-sermon for my church’s online worship service, so I thought I’d share it with y’all as well. If you prefer to watch a video, the service is on YouTube here. My part starts around 36:34, but check out the other two mini-sermons before…
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Y’all, be angry!
As someone who has spent a fair amount of time reading the NIV translation of the Bible, I was surprised when I translated Ephesians 4:26 from the Greek to find that it does not really say “in your anger do not sin” (NIV). It actually says, “be angry and do not sin.” (This is all…
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Late to the Vineyard
Is your eye bad because I am good? That’s a very literal translation of the second half of Matthew 20:15, which is often translated or are you envious because I am generous? (e.g. NIV, NRSV). I’m thinking about this story, which Jesus tells in Matthew 20:1-16, about several different sets of workers who end up…
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John the Baptist’s Legacy
I don’t think I realized until last summer―when I was preparing a sermon on John the Baptist for a preaching class―how many things Jesus says that are actually direct quotes from John the Baptist, at least as recorded by the gospel writer Matthew. First I noticed that right as Jesus begins his public ministry, in…
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John and the Bethel Worship Leader’s Daughter
Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities. When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to…
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Introductions
Today, the first Sunday of Advent, I embark on an adventure of writing and sharing daily reflections on the life and story of John the Baptist. True confession: I have not written any of these reflections yet. Not even tomorrow’s! I have no grand master plan. I just think John the Baptist is an important…