Lent begins with ashes and “dust.”  It begins with a disturbing God. He is disturbing and unsettling.  Why?  Because He addresses sin.  He names it. When Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, precisely as the Serpent promised, “their eyes were opened,” and yet what they “saw” was not what they had been promised; rather, they […]

Read More “Our Peace in His Will” – An Ash Wednesday Meditation

I loved grad school: the opportunity to read authors on a topic that (for me) was the most interesting topic in the world; the time both to strengthen basic skills and to learn new ones; a supervisor who was wonderfully ruthless in poking holes in everything I wrote, revealing hidden assumptions, faulty logic, etc.; the conversations over a […]

Read More Big truths for little lambs

Before I had children, I can remember thinking, “Wow, there’s so much I want to impart to my kids!  There’s so much I want to share with them and teach them.” Today, with four kids, my strong suspicion is that they have taught me far more than I have taught them. For starters, our children were […]

Read More Obedient Children

The Bible says weird, even (deeply) disturbing things, about slaves and slavery. The Bible also seems to contradict itself on the matter.  For example, the Exodus story is a story of how Israel’s God “frees” his people from the bondage of Egypt so that can be…free?  Nope.  Rather, so that they can be his slaves. What […]

Read More Slavery and freedom in Scripture

A story that has always stuck with me: A friend of mine told me that he had shared with a family member the central message of Christianity–something called “the Gospel.”  He told this family member:  “The gospel is about God not treating us as we deserve.”  And the family thought about it for a bit, then […]

Read More Why does our faith fail to “go public”?

What was the greatest gift your parents have given you? We children (young or old) could answer this question in a number of ways probably, but here is mine: The greatest gift my parents gave me was to make Jesus and his community of disciples–a.k.a. the local church–the central thing in their entire lives. (In its early years my […]

Read More The greatest gift my parents gave me

In the first half of Psalm 141 David has sought God’s help for the corruption within him.  In the second half he seeks God’s help with the corruption around him: But my prayer is ever against the evil actions of men. David is anything but aloof to the evil of this world; here is no disinterested “tolerance,” no […]

Read More A Psalm for the New Year (part 2)

Psalm 141 was not written for the New Year. Yet it is a psalm of resolve.  Of sober resolve.  It does have several resolutions, but primarily requests.  Humble, heartfelt requests.  Listen to David: (What follows is my own translation of a notoriously difficult psalm.) Vv. 1-2: A Psalm.  Of David. LORD, I have called out to […]

Read More A Psalm for the New Year (part 1)