13th Sunday After Pentecost

Shhhhh

By Scott Dewey | August 27, 2023 |

I’m not sure why Jesus said, “Don’t tell.” All I know is, Love seems not in a rush. She takes her revealings slow.

I’m learning, very slowly over a lifetime, not to be in a rush either. Present to the absence; present to the presence.

When I was a teenager there were perhaps no words from Jesus that I found more troubling than those on the concept of biological family. The story in Mark 3 for instance, when Mary and Jesus’ brothers were lingering outside and he uttered famously, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”

Sustenance

By Valery Vital-Herne | August 20, 2021 |

Food sustains our bodies but also draws our communities and families together. It feeds our needs at many levels. This week’s lectionary text, with Jesus addressing a crowd, tackles this truth.

The Human Catechism

By Kris Rocke | August 24, 2020 |

In our Lenten journey we are nearing the cross, the place where Jesus will make visible that to which we are blind and change the way we see forever. We will see the excluded one give birth to a new kind of community that is scapegoat free.

And a Kid Shall Lead Them

By Ojii BaBa Madi | September 5, 2019 |

He was among several promising students whose families fled violence and economic crisis in their homelands, only to find a different brand of violence and economic crisis in Camden, New Jersey, USA. For these students, survival involves a series of practices, routines, and procedures only understood by those who have indeed counted the cost of the perilous cavalcade north.

Harry

By Kris Rocke | August 25, 2017 |

The camp speaker joined us in our cabin and Harry was on the edge, struggling with Jesus again. Harry had been to camp many times and each time he’d said “yes” to Jesus. Each time he meant it. And each time he returned to his neighborhood where the peaceful clarity of summer camp gave way to the reality of violence that eventually swallowed him up.