In the middle of Lent we pause to reflect on the Cross of Jesus Christ. And we hear again Jesus calling us to take up our cross and follow him. Take up the cross that represents the weight of my ungodly thoughts and actions, the weight of my neglect of the least of his brothers and …
Room for Mercy
At the heart of our Liturgy is Mercy. We say it so often that there's a Greek saying that makes fun of it. But make no mistake, Mercy is at the heart of our faith. And mercy is precisely what is missing in the world today. Everything comes from mercy. And the parable Jesus teaches …
The Mystical Power of Prepositions
I was about to start writing a commentary on today's verse, Psalm 139:9-10, when I looked at my weekly email from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks that had arrived yesterday but which I hadn't read yet. You can read it on his website. It is a very eloquent and profoundly theological statement, and in it he quotes …
A speech to end all speeches
By itself the verse highlighted today, Job 12:13, is not particularly remarkable. Ho hum, yes, we know God has wisdom and power, and all other good things. Let’s move on to something more interesting, right? Aha, yes move on and you find yourself in the midst of a very extraordinary speech by a man called Job. …
Majesty on high
Psalm 24 is one of my favorites and it has lent itself to profound use by the Christian church. Christian tradition came to associate this psalm with Easter and Ascension, and that is how George Frideric Handel used it in his masterpiece Messiah. You can watch a fine performance of this segment of Messiah here. …
The Word in Hebrew and Greek
What a towering statement, a highpoint of biblical theology, a pinnacle of human understanding and spirituality. Thousands of years of human search for truth and for God, culminated in this statement by the Gospel writer John. The Word, the Logos was in the beginning - was, which means did not come into being at the …
The Commandments of Theocracy
For many years evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the United States have been fighting for the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings, especially courthouses, city halls and legislatures. I have always understood this as only a political move to assert the mythology of America's Christian origins. I see it as political because there …
A Love Song
The Bible is a love song. Western Christianity has turned the Bible into a dry source of doctrines and judgments, all neatly wrapped up so as to make sense to the boring lives of people who are immune to the immensity of divine imagination and romance. People struggle to understand why there is so much …
The Provocative Jesus
Two versions of the same Gospel story, the healing of the Syrophoenician woman's daughter. First, Mark's version: And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose …
Reflections on the Sistine Madonna
I came upon a story called The Sistine Madonna, by Vasily Grossman, a writer and survivor of Soviet and Nazi antisemitism. A black and white picture of the painting Sistine Madonna was included in the story, so my curiosity was piqued. I found a good quality color reproduction of this painting and I wish to …
Ancient Answers 