Every time I come to the Collect for St. Luke the Evangelist, I feel like it in some ways it not only lays out something that’s important, but it also gently takes me by the front of my shirt and says, “Come on, you can do this, too.” A Continuing Ministry What do I mean?…

Albert John Luthuli, a black native South African, was a deeply committed Christian man. He was, in fact, the child of Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries but was eventually confirmed and commissioned as a lay preacher. And it was in this context, with a focus on evangelism, that Luthuli came face to face with this truth: If…

Have you heard of what’s called the Serenity Prayer? It was penned (or at least the story goes) by Reinhold Niebuhr, a professor at Union Seminary in New York City in 1939 and made popular, of course, by Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, one of AA’s founders, an Episcopal priest named Sam Shoemaker, helped introduce the…

Four men approach Jesus with a paralytic. It’s an incredibly familiar story, told in a couple of different settings in the gospels. But did you notice what comes out of Jesus’s mouth? As it’s translated here, “Take heart” (Matt. 9:2b), or (more accurately), “Stay courageous.” “Your sins are forgiven.” And he also says, “Your sins…

Several years ago, I had organized a Good Friday service that was a combination of music and meditations. And my music director brought in a young viola player for an obligato part in a choral piece. I went up before the service to introduce myself, and we chatted for a little bit. As might be…

In the eleventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus, as he often did, used an analogy to communicate truth. In this case, the analogy is one the nation of Israel had heard again and again, that of a yoke. The Yoke That Oppresses And of course you know what a yoke is. It’s a bar with a…

A prayer movement taking place in England is creating the most extraordinary missionaries. One group takes literally what Jesus said to his disciples. They pray, and they say, “OK, Lord, where do you want us to go?” They’re willing. And we must be willing, too. But how? Willing to Go At first, these missionaries would…

In this election season, isn’t it tempting to get caught up in the frenzy? Everyone we encounter seems to want to polarize and divide us. “Whose side are you on?” “If you vote for him/her you are voting to dismantle our democracy!” “If you don’t vote at all, you’re just giving a vote to him/her.”…

A curious thing happened to me this week. I was examining the scriptures, reading about Paul on trial before the Jewish court in Jerusalem. At one point, the tribune in charge of him took him back to his jail cell for his own protection, “fearing that they would pull Paul to pieces” (Acts 23:10b). But…

God has an extraordinary ability to defy our expectations. Especially if he really wants to get our attention. Beyond Expectations When I was a college student, I went to try a large Episcopal church not too far from where my family attended. It was an 8:00 a.m. service held in a small chapel, and the…