Luke 13:34-35 became one of my favorite texts twelve years ago when I heard a specific interpretation of it at a Bible study. So going into today I assumed I’d write about that beautiful interpretation my sweet and naive brain once absorbed way back when. The issue, though, is that I did some research on …
Tag Archives: Jesus
Futility or Fruitfulness
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” This statement is widely attributed to Albert Einstein. Can’t we all relate to it? That feeling of futility, when you continue to work, and yet the results don’t seem to pay off? In Luke 5 Jesus comes across a group …
Sacred Interruptions
Do you ever have days that feel constantly interrupted? You woke up with a specific set of tasks to accomplish, yet each time you begin working on one, something else needs your attention. Your neighbor stops by, or your sink stops up, or your car starts making a crazy sound, or you get an urgent email from …
Celebrating in the Unknown
As a child I loved reading the poems of Shel Silverstein, and I carried that with me into adulthood. One of my favorite of his poems is called “The Whatif’s”– you can read it here. In the poem, some Whatifs crawl into the author’s ear, and begin incessantly asking the question, “Whatif?” “Whatif I flunk …
Up Above and Down Below
One of my husband and my favorite scenes to quote is from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. In it, Michael Palin is a priest and leads a religious school in praying: “Oh, Lord. Ooooh, you are so big. So absolutely huge. Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you. Forgive us, …
Fighting Rest
Rest has been a tumultuous topic for me over the past two weeks. I went through three nights in which I couldn’t sleep, and after those I had to force myself to stay awake throughout the day. I then slept like a hibernating bear for the following two nights, couldn’t sleep the night after that, …
Being a Neighbor
My nephew went through a phase of temper tantrums when he was two. As he calmed himself after one of these fitful tantrums, he sighed, and apologized saying, “I’m sorry, mommy. I just get so angry sometimes. And I don’t like people!” Don’t we all feel that way sometimes? We encounter a lawyer who expresses …
Wining and Dining in the 1st Century
Jesus first dines with a Pharisee in Luke 7. The text says that the Pharisee invited Jesus to eat with him, and when Jesus arrived he entered the Pharisee’s home and sat down at the table (v. 36). This is normal for us, right? If I receive a dinner invitation, I usually bring something with me …
Stand Up!
For many years now, one of my favorite gospel stories has been the healing of the paralyzed man. The first time it stood out to me I was preparing to help lead Vacation Bible School in the Dominican Republic. One of the leaders decided that we would reenact the healing of the paralytic and narrate …
Scarcity and Abundance
Scarcity: The experience of not enough. We all encounter it as human beings, and the form it takes impacts us in drastically different ways. For example, the person who is chronically homeless faces scarcity of food, shelter, and safety. Someone with cancer feels the scarcity of health, strength, and autonomy. The person whose marriage is dissolving feels …
Pastor Melissa 