It’s Christ The King Sunday in which we celebrate the reign of Christ dawning in this age and in the age to come. But, as we’ve seen throughout the Gospel of Matthew, it is an unusual, upside down kingdom that redefines power and relocates God at the bottom, not at the top.
The striking contrast of two completely distinct, but adjacent worlds, startled my senses and threw me into a state of disorientation. We were in Kolkata, India as part of a weeklong city consultation for doctoral students. One morning, without any particular instruction, we hopped off a bus in a neighborhood swarming with people. Drawn up in the movement of the crowd, we found ourselves in the midst of a high festival day for the Hindu goddess Kali; the crowd was flowing toward her temple.
In last week’s passage, we saw Jesus exorcising bad religion as he cast out the “impure spirit” of a man inside the synagogue. The reflection challenged the traditional reading of the text. What if the impure spirit didn’t so much reflect the possessed man? What if it was actually a reflection of the religious authorities?
John the Baptist appears in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and we are told that the “whole” Judean countryside and “all” the people of Jerusalem went out to him. It seems John has become quite the successful, suburban mega-church pastor with a huge commuter congregation. But he is clear that his show is not the best in town.
In one of my favorite Ted Talks, Educational Technology Specialist Sugata Mitra discusses his experiments with “Hole in the Wall” computers. These are computer kiosks left in Indian slums, among children with no prior contact with PCs.
In one of my favorite Ted Talks, Educational Technology Specialist Sugata Mitra discusses his experiments with “Hole in the Wall” computers. These are computer kiosks left in Indian slums, among children with no prior contact with PCs. Mitra found that children, by pooling their knowledge and resources, learned how to operate the computers.
In one of my favorite Ted Talks, Educational Technology Specialist Sugata Mitra discusses his experiments with “Hole in the Wall” computers. These are computer kiosks left in Indian slums, among children with no prior contact with PCs. Mitra found that children, by pooling their knowledge and resources, learned how to operate the computers.
This week marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther famously nailing his 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. The action brought attention to the rampant abuse inherent in the ecclesiastical structures of his day.
“Love God. Love People. Nothing Else Matters.” So reads a phrase on the many battered T-shirts stacked up in the back of my closet. I just don’t have the heart to discard them…
In today’s world of instant news, we experience one story of scandal after another. Our news feed constantly tempts us with the tantalizing details of the latest political or Hollywood scandal. The details of this Gospel story seem so comparatively mild. Peter has become a “scandal” to Jesus for insisting that Jesus should live and not die: “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
As we drew close to the church building, we noticed a structure in very ill repair. Windows were broken, doors unable to close properly, large stains adorned rugs and ceilings, and the arresting smell of strong body odor pierced our senses. We walked through the hallway toward the main worship space.
The Jesuit Father, Anthony de Mello wrote that the shortest distance between a human and Truth is a story. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a variety of stories (parables) to describe the kingdom of heaven. We move from mustard seed (a weed) planted amidst a crop in a field to the image of yeast, to a treasure hidden in a field, to fine pearls and then, in perhaps the most striking of all, we are told that the kingdom of heaven is like a net (v. 47-48).
Our Gospel reading this week draws from just three little verses at the end of an incredibly dense Matthew 10. The chapter is full of missional directives, which are bookended by the topic of missional hospitality we find in verses 40-42.
For many in the United States, the end of May is full of graduation parties for aspiring high school seniors — a transition into a new life as adults. While exciting, for student and parent alike, the season can also be filled with fear and doubt.
Street Psalms leads a collaboration of 13 training hubs (UTC) in cities around the world; together, we seek to develop incarnational leaders who love their cities and seek their peace. We have a strong sense of what UTC Hubs are called to do on a communal level. But, we can sometimes lose sight of where we, as individual leaders, are guiding people to on a personal level.
We trudge along this Lenten season towards the horror of the cross. Just two weeks away, Good Friday marks the day when the shadow of death will completely shroud us in darkness and despair. As the body of Lazarus lies entombed, wrapped in the grave clothes of death, we find ourselves also shrouded in darkness, wrapped in the grave
clothes of sin: fear reigning in our hearts.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4:1-11 After an encounter with the shadowlands of Ash Wednesday two days ago, we now sit silently in front of an opened curtain revealing the five-week theater that is the Valley of Lent. As is […]
“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” Matthew 5:13-20 This past Sunday morning I attended a unique worship service with some friends. It was called “Street Church;” all the parishioners are homeless youth from a particular area of Guatemala City. Street Church is coordinated by a ministry called […]
38“Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” Luke 20:27-38 The Gospel not only empowers us to see, but to see from a particular vantage point-through the unconstrained eyes of a child. It is an invitation to see from within the reality of the […]
“He was seeking to see Jesus but on account of the crowd he could not….” Luke 19:1-10 This week’s Gospel text is a narrative some people grew up singing in Sunday School: “Zacchaeus was a wee, little man, and a wee, little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for […]
15“One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him -and he was a Samaritan.” Luke 17:11-19 Our text this week is a common narrative engaged by preachers at Thanksgiving time in North America pleading for “attitudes […]
26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:25-33 Throughout the course of life we often engage Scripture through the lens of present circumstance. In my case, the engagement with our […]
“Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11:1) As we mentioned three weeks ago, each summer we take a Sabbath break from the Word From Below reflections. Instead, we are inviting you to pray with us. (We will resume our normal Word From Below reflections in September). Here are two prayers that have […]
“Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11:1) As we mentioned two weeks ago, each summer we take a Sabbath break from the Word From Below reflections. Instead, we are inviting you to pray with us. (We will resume our normal Word From Below reflections in September). Here are two prayers that have been helping form […]
“Purity of heart is to will one thing.” Søren Kierkegaard 42 “…but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better…” Luke 10:38-42 Jesus and the disciples are on the move. They enter a village and receive life-giving hospitality from two sisters in the intimacy of their home. Martha prepares […]
“First say, Peace to this house.”
…and a large crowd went along with him (entering the city)…and a large crowd from the town was with her (leaving the city).” Luke 7:11-17 A collision at the city gate!! A crowd of death is leaving the city while a crowd of life is entering – they collide at the city gate. The […]
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him. Luke 7:9 There are only two places where the Bible tells us that Jesus is amazed. In our lectionary text this week, Jesus marvels at the faith of a Roman centurion. In the other occasion (Mark 6:6), Jesus is marveling at the unbelief that he experienced […]
When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” John 5:1-9 As we approach the sixth Sunday of Easter, we are continually being challenged to see life by the light of the resurrection, through […]
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you….” John 20:19-31 “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring […]
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 We continue our trek this Lenten season […]
And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. -Luke 9:29 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…. -Hebrews 1:3 When my daughter Sofia was seven years old, she once unabashedly told me that I was […]
It is no mistake that Jesus chooses the vessels of ceremonial cleansing to become the containers of liquid delight.
A marginalized prophet gives all.
Learning from a blind man how to see.
Too far for comfort.
A wink of the eye.
Tragedy in the Street Psalms community.
Will you lay down your life?
Easter becomes for us an opportunity for heightened awareness of the great gift of living truth that has been bestowed upon us.
How often I find myself living like the Pharisees, not able to rest in the holy silence of Saturday, not allowing it to simply be what it is.
“… if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Jesus utters these words in anticipation of his own death – and Sugar’s.
Traveling with courage.
Perhaps a more revealing question than “what does Jesus see in them?” is “what do they see in this Jesus?”
In the Spanish language the verb esperar means both “to hope” and “to wait.” It is a beautiful Advent verb.
At Street Psalms, we have a hunch that in many instances, the line between insiders and outsiders (us vs. them) is an invention of our own making.
Is that really true? Is this statement about love in two directions all that really matters?
A call girl’s facelift to “authority”.
“The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story.”
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.
(Gen. 21:19)
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever….”
The dead still speak – at least they do in Guatemala.
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