Bishop's Blog
Genuine Christian commitment takes courage, more now than ever before. But how do we obtain it? What will make us brave? We live in a world that is more and more suspicious of genuine religious commitment. Many of the people we know would prefer not that we would have no religious faith, but that our…
A Profane Horror Have you ever considered the crucifixion of Jesus? When you pray and meditate on it, his physical death is nothing less than what Jürgen Moltmann called “a profane horror”—the mutilated body of Jesus strung up on a cross, so disfigured by the lacerations and the wounds of the lashings and beatings that…
Christ’s journey to the cross is one of isolation. Though surrounded by crowds, he is entirely alone. The only thing he has is the determination God placed within him to walk out what he clearly acknowledges is a predetermined path. And on this path, he exhibits two key qualities that encapsulate both his mission and…
Not long ago, I was in a meeting at one of our churches, a small group of four or five people that included two women. And as the meeting concluded, we started talking about upcoming events on the church calendar. And one of the women said, with a twinkle in her eye, “Well, I just…
Some of the world’s best stories contain astonishing contrasts. Fairy tales have given us a beauty and a beast, an ugly duckling and a beautiful swan, an innocent Little Red Riding Hood and an evil wolf. Or what about A Tale of Two Cities? Here, Charles Dickens brought us “the best of times” and “the…
What do you think about when you hear the word Lent? The world bombards us with questions: “What are you doing for Lent?” “What are you giving up for Lent this year?” “How long do you think you can go without Starbucks [or fast food, or sugar, or whatever they think might be a typical…
I find the season of Lent a tremendous relief. We enter into this season together, acknowledging openly and honestly that we don’t measure up. We all fall short of what God has called us to be. We live in a world that is simultaneously beautiful and disastrous, a world filled with great injustices, horrors, and…
Have you ever been sailing? Do you know that feeling when you are making your way out of the channel into a harbor, uncertain of how to reach your destination? As someone who has spent some time on a sailboat, I know that in order to get to the harbor, you have to see where…
In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus calls a child, puts him among the disciples, and says to them, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3 NRSV). A scant few centuries later, a twelve-year-old girl, Agnes, lived in the Roman Empire…
As we wake up every morning, as we drive to and from work, as we work out at the gym, and as we go throughout our days, what do we often hear? Each Sunday as we come together to worship the Lord, what frames our services? You guessed it: music. Music serves some distinct purposes…