Posts by Lina Thompson
Gritty Grace
Years ago, I was serving in a small church in my neighborhood. One week, I was preparing for a baptism and discovered this church did not have a baptismal font.
In a conversation with another pastor and friend whose church was down the street, he said, “Not a problem, I will bring you ours.”
Read MoreWho’s on the Guest List?
As Jesus approached the cross in Jerusalem, not everyone grasped the significance. There were those religious leaders who were threatened by his increasing popularity among the masses and wanted to shut that down. AND there some who were awaiting a Jesus that would green-light a violent overthrow of Roman oppression and were hoping this was their time.
Read MoreA Reluctant Jesus and a Woman with Great Faith
She knows who he is and she is calling forth what she knows to be true… at the end of the day, he is a God of mercy. From my vantage point, it feels like the unnamed Canaanite woman actually knew more about Jesus and his mission than he did. She either knew, or didn’t care, that her status should not preclude her request for mercy. She is holding Jesus accountable to who he is.
Read MoreEmbracing the Paradox
Here, Jesus raises two animals before us, serpents and doves, as symbols of a way forward. It’s both thought provoking and confusing. This simile invites us to embrace a particular way of existing in the world, one that reflects the formation of disciples — God’s people who, filled with the Spirit, discern with wisdom and approach life with humility.
Read MoreThe Promise of Presence
Here we are, nearly 6 weeks past Easter. The gospel lectionary passage will not let us forget the days before Jesus’ death…and the words…the last words he spoke to his disciples. Jesus is measured and intentional with what he wants them to know and remember…and here it is…
Read MoreWhat Happens on the Mountain
It’s safe to say that James, John and Peter had the strangest, scariest, holiest, most other-worldly experience when they accompanied Jesus on a hike up a high mountain. At some point during this trek, Jesus’ appearance changed — right before them. It was like he was shining from the inside out. One translation said, “Sunlight poured from his face.” Even his clothes became super bright.
Read MoreMaking Room
When Many years ago, I started collecting nativity scenes – both elaborate and simple, traditional and contemporary, from many different places. Some included the whole entourage of characters (shepherds, magi, angels, animals), and others just had Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Read MoreThis Widow
As I’ve read today’s passage, I’ve been wracking my brain with this question: Have I ever had to persist in my prayers to God? Has there ever been anything I have desired so much that I have continually petitioned God like the widow in today’s text?
Read More18 Long Years
I have an 18 year-old young person in my life; they have not had an easy go of things. This person recently graduated from high school, which was a touch-and-go situation. They haven’t had a stable home environment for all the years I’ve known them. And they are rarely ever, what I would describe as, “happy” — it’s almost as if they don’t trust themselves to experience happiness.
Read MoreWhere are his people?
Today’s passage tells of Jesus’ encounter with a demon-possessed man. This isn’t the only story about possession in the Bible, but it’s one of the more dramatic: exorcised demons cast into a herd of pigs, a man healed and restored to society, and a community struggling to grasp what God was doing right before their eyes.
Read MoreBlessed is She
Advent is about the birth of Jesus, of course. But for me, the beauty of these verses is the way God uses Mary and Elizabeth, people who would have been marginalized by society because of their gender, to teach us all how to relate to each other with an attitude of abundance.
Read MoreA Different Kind of Power
One has to admire James and John’s audacity, as misguided as it was. But it appears they had either forgotten, or missed, what Jesus had already told them about the nature of power and where it resides. I empathize with them. I get it. They probably felt justified in their request.
Read MoreFlesh and Blood
I’ll be honest, today’s passage makes me cringe. The language Jesus uses is cannibalistic; it’s scandalous. “Eat my flesh. Drink my blood.” Yuck. Am I right? As someone who presides over the communion table, hearing Jesus speak about His body this way makes me super uncomfortable.
Read MorePeace Be With you
But if I’m honest, I am still wondering – what are the actual, tangible things that make for peace? This seems like the million dollar question for the Church to ponder … especially as ones who are proclaiming this peace.
Read MoreRemember our Baptism
Alimentando El Pueblo (Feeding El Pueblo) is a food distribution initiative that specifically caters to the Latinx community in my area. This idea came from within the heart of the community…
Read MoreMary’s Light
She was a high-school senior. She told me she wasn’t feeling well and asked if I could give her a ride to the hospital. As we pulled up to the…
Read MoreThe Emperor’s Coin
My sister does this funny thing before she asks you for a favor. She says, “I’m going to ask you something, but I want you to know that it’s a…
Read MorePersistence
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
Read MoreThe Hospitable Iconoclast
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
Read MoreShe’s Calling
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
Read MoreThe First Word
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
Read MoreBecoming Human
To be clear, this love isn’t just another law… It’s not another demand for perfection. Quite the opposite. It involves a healthy dose of failure and forgiveness from everyone involved. They are also key elements in our journey to becoming a force in creating true human community.
Read MoreCome and See
The authentic work of Christ and the work of the church is hard to do, if not impossible, from a distance. An incarnational ministry prioritizes proximity in order to “see” God.
Read MoreBorn in Jail
John the Baptist, sitting In Herod’s prison with nothing but time on his hands, is beginning to question his expectations about Jesus. And I would imagine he’s wondering about his own life in light of his present circumstances.
Read MoreSome Good News
Perhaps this is what we are to testify to … the third way Jesus himself incarnated. At the cross, God absorbed into God’s self, in the body of Christ, all violence. God absorbed it, and did not return it. God suffered violence for all time and for all situations.
Read MoreWho is More Right?
To not judge ourselves in comparison to others is extremely difficult. Sometimes, the only way we know we are “right” is when we judge and compare ourselves against others; our opinions, our strongly held views, our values. The binaries of “right-wrong”, “good-evil”, “us-them”, etc. define who we are.
Read MoreJoin the Party
I’ve been around a few “lost” people in my life over the course of my ministry. How many times have I heard (and said), “Man, dude is lost.” And in that statement, I feel sad and hopeless, like I have come to my limits in what I am able to do or offer. It requires too much sometimes, going after the lost.
Read MoreThe Right Word at the Right time
Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now.” That’s odd to me. Up to this point, Jesus has already unloaded many things on to the disciples – a lot of important things. In fact, we know from 15:15, that Jesus had made everything known to them that the Father had made known to Him.
Read MoreTwo Letters
How are we to live our everyday lives in light of the Risen one? What difference does it make? What changes? What is new? Two letters. That’s it. In all the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples, its my favorite. It’s a small word, but it is everything
Read More“Member-ing”
Membering one’s self back to the Body is needed in order to experience the fullness of what it means to function in the same manner that God intended for the Church. When done well, membering helps to foster the kind of culture or environment in which belonging can take place.
Read MoreEaster
The Lords says: “I will create… I will rejoice… I will take delight… I will answer… I will hear.” There is no question who is making things happen here. Only God can make these kinds of declarations.
Read MoreThe Fox and the Hen
This image conveys a different notion of sacrifice for me than the cross. Jesus on the cross, hanging alone, has always felt distant for me. I’m an “observer” to this act of love.When I consider the metaphor Jesus offers here, of himself as a mother hen, my imagination about God is peaked in new ways.
Read MoreCan Girls Fish?
All the images I saw on the walls of my Sunday school classrooms were pictures of white children and a white Jesus who looked like a surfer. And then there were stories like today’s Gospel in which boys were the lucky ones. They were on the shore that day to receive the amazing invitation from Jesus to follow him.
Read MoreBaptized into One Body
“Will you renounce evil in all of its forms?” I’ve often wondered if I should ask those being baptized to list all the specific ways evil shows up in their lives, and how they plan to carry out their “renouncing.” (I don’t know if I’d actually use the word renounce…but I digress…).
Read MoreThe Waiting Rooms of Christmas: The Wilderness II
Advent gives us an excuse to consider again the nature of a God who comes to be with and in a people. If the Incarnation is anything, it is the God-in-flesh ONE who turns things upside down and inside out, simultaneously scandalizing and comforting us. This is the God we are waiting for and the God we will welcome—anew.
Read MoreNot One Stone
The city where I serve is no different than any other city in this country. A litany of the same issues show up on the city council agenda every two weeks: violence, unemployment, immigration, disparity in the education system, community safety, homelessness, policing, economic development and housing issues, just to name a few.
Read MoreCan Evil Drive Out Evil?
“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Read MoreGod’s Language
It’s cliffhanger season on TV right now. One of my favorite shows, “Grey’s Anatomy,” has their season finale tonight. I’m expecting something from Shonda Rhimes that will be both spectacular and frustrating. That’s the beauty of cliffhangers. When told well, they keep viewers expecting a great return next season.
Read MoreWounded Resurrection
Jesus shows his wounds. He doesn’t hide them. They were not miraculously healed nor did they disappear. He was not completely “made whole” again. He continues to bear the scars of his crucifixion.
Read MoreWhen I am lifted up
I had a great conversation with a young man recently who was going to be baptized. I asked him what he thought about God and what he believes God thinks about him.
His answer was so authentic.
“Well, I know God is there in my life. And I feel him. But if I’m honest, sometimes I forget to notice. Sometimes, it slips my mind. I want to get better at remembering and seeing. I want to notice more.”
Read MoreInto the Wilderness
One of my brothers was a college football All-American. He broke and set many conference and national records. He was a Heisman trophy candidate his senior year, and the third pick in the first NFL draft. This was in the late 1970’s—well before social media. But for what it was, there was quite a bit of media attention that surrounded him.
Read MoreRight Time Moments
During the season of Epiphany, I’ve committed to be more aware of the ways that God is present and at work in and around me each day.
Here’s a snapshot of what I’ve seen three weeks into Epiphany:
I performed two memorial services—both for young men in our community who died unexpectedly, literally leaving hundreds of people stunned and in horrible, excruciating grief.
Sheep or Goat?
God comes to us in what Mother Theresa called “the distressing disguise of the other,” in the face of the despised and rejected. That, in a nutshell, is the Gospel. It’s Word made flesh!
Read MoreWait… God Did What?
If we view this parable through the lens of an honor-based culture, not a wealth-based culture, then this parable unlocks beautiful truth about where the Kingdom of God is located.
Read MoreYou’re Invited
Stephen Curry, basketball star of the Golden State Warriors, said he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to visit the White House. He was hesitant due to the President’s statements concerning NFL football players and their protests during the national anthem…
Read MoreWhy so Judgey?
One of the disciples poses a question that is essentially asking, “How much do we really have to forgive each other?” Jesus’ response, as was his habit, came in the form of a parable.
Read MoreThe Bad Sower
I look for God’s activity in my life through the very mundane things that occur each day. Today was one of those days.
I looked down at my cell phone when it rang. It was a number that I was familiar with. Whenever this number pops up, I have to make a few quick decisions: Do I have time to talk? Do I have the energy? At the most, it’s a 10-minute phone call.
Read MoreThe Great Commission(s)
The command to “go” and to “make” disciples has defined Christianity for centuries and has probably been one of the most formative parts of our Christian narrative. We are supposed to share our faith. We are supposed to lead people to Jesus. We are commanded to “go and make.” Period.
Read MoreThe Promise of Presence
Since my father passed away some years ago, I’ve had a fascination with the last words and days of a person’s life.
My father struggled with lung cancer–breathing was a chore. Every breath he took was measured, had meaning, and was intentional.
Read MoreWhy are you talking to me?
This is what I thirst for-bold proclamation that Jesus’ interaction with those who are marginalized, including women, is on the front edge of God’s Kingdom work. Worshiping God in Spirit and in truth includes telling the whole truth about a God whose conversations begin in the margins. Jesus empowered a Samaritan Woman to do this “telling” of the Good News.
Read MoreBecoming Perfectly Human
I use to think that the Sermon on the Mount was easy and beautiful. I use to think, “yeah Jesus, tell ’em what they are missing.” The Sermon on the…
Read MoreWhat About Church Out Here?
One Sunday afternoon, I was driving through the neighborhood with a car full of local kids that were a part of our ministry. We pulled up to a four way…
Read MoreThe Way of the Cross?
“Build that wall! Build that wall” “Go back to where you came from.” “Pack your bags! Pack your bags!” On the heels of a divisive and highly contested election season…
Read MoreFaith from Below
This is a familiar parable Jesus uses to teach us about the nature of prayer. The widow shows us what it looks like to persist in prayer: to keep praying,…
Read MoreThe Gospel Hustle
In my neighborhood, this would be called a hustle. I see it every day. This parable sounds like a contemporary situation — a person is about to get fired for…
Read MoreSeized By Fear
The man in the tombs we see in this passage is tormented by demons that will not go away. They have “seized” him. They have overpowered his life and isolated…
Read MoreThe Gift of Shattered Expectations
Laying down cloaks was an act of homage for royalty. By riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, Jesus was making a public declaration that in fact he…
Read MoreA “Hens and Chicks” Spirituality
Jerusalem was in trouble, and she didn’t even know it. Jesus’ prophetic words here in chapter 13 are dripping with sorrow and regret. Corruption in the temple, spiritual unfruitfulness and…
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