Simon, Andrew, James, and John leave their nets and follow Jesus based on…nothing. Nothing aside from Jesus’ call and invitation to follow. Sometimes we’ve tried to dig into the psychology or sociology of these first disciples to try to explain why they followed, as though something was “wrong” with them...
If you include both the 1 Samuel and John readings in your service, you have two very rich and yet very different stories of call: a child and an adult; an open, willing listener and a snarky skeptic; someone called to a specific, yet dismaying purpose and someone called to...
At his baptism by John, we learn of Jesus’ own glimpsing of “the heavens torn apart.” And, indeed, in Jesus himself, we too experience that the fabric is torn. (Note that Mark’s gospel also reports that the curtain of the temple is torn in two when Jesus dies.) Whatever boundary...
The word Epiphany has to do with “manifestation” or “revelation.” As a feast day, Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles or “the nations,” as embodied by the foreign astrologers who came seeking the Christ child. But how does the revealing of Christ—Christ’s being and identity, will...
For Advent-Christmas 2023, I was responsible for preparing the Weekly Services (formerly Sunday by Sunday) for Epiphany Day, Baptism of Christ, and the second and third Sundays after Epiphany. Every time we approach this point in our annual cycle, the calendar presents us with a series of choices to make...
