Mother’s Day Excerpt
I have often said that Mother’s Day may be the most difficult holiday upon which to preach. There are so many variables and differing expectations. Yet to totally ignore the occasion in the sermon never seems like the right thing to do, either. So, I…
Looking Back
I have been reading the Psalms this week and something has jumped out at me as never before. Many of the psalms view the past and the present with very differing thoughts. The present is seen as a cup half full, and often times much worse, questioning…
Not Always Obvious
As is my custom, I am currently reading two books. I started reading both of them the same day a week or so ago. One is over 600 pages long, the other only 139 pages. However, in spite of the obvious disparity, I expect I will finish the “600 plus-er”…
A Lonely Road Turned Around
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the one of the two disciples walking the road to Emmaus on Easter (Luke 24.13-35). Cleopas and his friend were not among the twelve, but may have been two the of seventy Jesus sent out. And they definitely were…
Patient and Kind
This month as I make home visits I have been focusing upon the Easter story in the Gospel of Matthew. And this week, as I prepare to preach on Sunday, I am additionally looking at the part of the Easter story generally known as The Road to Emmaus. …
Going Somewhere … Together
I had a strange dream Tuesday night. Strange in content. Strange in that it had no apparent context with anything in my life. Strange that I remembered it.
… through Disruption
I’m on vacation (if that’s possible while retired), so I have extra time to read and less motivation to write. The result is that you receive reflections from what I have been reading. Today you get a few paragraphs from the concluding chapter of…
Fear, Shock, Terror
Sorry about last week, folks …. Just didn’t have any “writing” in me. And don’t be surprised if it happens again in the upcoming future. We will be on vacation from the 13th to the 31st … and one never knows how the spirit will move … Or, as Jesus…
The Gospel is TOUGH
Here it is the last week in February and I am still thinking about the Epistle lesson from February 1! “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God … Jews demand signs and Greeks seek…
Statements
The part of the story I find most significant is not that Jesus’ “face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light”(Matthew 17.2) or the fact that “there appeared to (the disciples) Moses and Elijah, talking with (Jesus)” (Matthew 17.3) …