Not long ago, in a spiritual direction session, My companion and I spoke about the relinquishing of baggage. Letting baggage go to give space to my future self. Placing that baggage at the feet of Jesus. Placing that baggage on the altar as a sacrifice of a part of myself to God. Like a good and proper Gestalt pupil, I spoke to the future, my futur…

Your salvation is not about you. It is about God. Now maybe you're not wealthy. Maybe money is not the issue for you. I invite you to close your eyes for a secondand think. Like think about what are thethings that you lean on to make sure you know that you're okay. What are they? Probably is money for a lot of us. You can open your eyeswhen you wan…

We all know that divorce happens. It happens to marriedpeople. It happens to siblings. It happens to friends, and neighbors, andcommunities. It even happens to countries. Divorce, or the act of separating ourselves from oneanother, is the result of human error in understanding God's intentions forhumanity. Divorce is a common response to our amnesi…

In the business world I lived in, When someone said the left hand doesn't knowwhat the right hand is doing, that was not a good thing. That was talking about things falling apartpretty quickly. But here I believe Jesusis speaking with hyperbole, delivering a powerful message for us. To give our attention to whatever we aredoing. What our hands are …

In his arms, he holds an infant, and he says, "Be likethis." Innocent, and dependent upon one another, unstained by theworld; and open to being formed. Be like this. Curious seekers with BIG emotions. Be creative and adaptable; imitating me. Someone you cantrust. Welcome the vulnerable into your midst, and be like them. For the leader among you is …

Jesus says, follow me, but be prepared to be transformed.Talk about me, but if you're going to open your mouth and talk about exclusion,if you're going to cancel people, if you're going to kick them out of yourlife, out of this place, if you're going to deny your responsibility for thepeople around you, don't speak in Jesus name. If you're going to…

Are you beset with gloom? Gloomy because someone like me refuses to accept your dehumanizingdream, crushing his nose for an answer? Oh well, still I rise. Maya audacious,defiant backtalk is a sassy refusal to accept the life restricting consequencesof the denials, discrimination, and oppression by a dominant center andpatriarchal system. Today we h…

I need to say this, by the way, in this conversation, ifI don't say this, I will be very remiss. Anger and hatred are not the same thing. And many of you were raised, especially women, were raised to believethat anger was bad and you should not have it or keep it to yourself. We were taught that youshouldn't be angry about anything. And you might b…

We pray that God will take ordinary things. Things like bread and wine and water and oil and use those ordinary elements to convey God's extraordinary grace and love. It matters. It matters that we recognize these gifts from God and it matters too that we acknowledge the reality of evil. I don't envision a return to three years preparation for bapt…

For me, the third grade was probably one of the best times of my life. I could pick out my own Umbro shorts, scrunchie my own ponytail, And ride my bike freely around the neighborhood from sun up to dinner time, getting into some good and maybe not-so-good trouble with the other kids who lived nearby. I learned to cook, spent unnumbered hours creat…

And then what happened is as many of you know, I had a sortof a conversion experience when I was 20 and I realized, oh gosh,dang, I do believe in God. This is real that I believe in God. And in fact, Ithink I'm Christian. I do believe in Jesus. And from the moment that thathappened, I felt this sort of need to prove some things. From the moment tha…

This certainly is not unity. Is unity a difficult ask for today? Today America has become more divided than ever. For many, unity is viewed as a threat to peace. to one's personhood or individual identity altogether. Unity requires someone must win and someone must lose. Unity means a loss of freedom. Unity means a loss of merit or a loss of dignit…

Now that this is my last Sunday with you, it's time for me to tell you my real name, because in so many ways, our name defines us, roots us in this world, gives us our identity. My real name isn't the name that my parents put on my birth certificate and that I was called at my baptism. It's the name my grandmother gave me when I was born. My father…

We live in a time when the proclaiming of Christ's word maysometimes be used to divide us, not unite us. To judge us, separate us from one another. The distortion of Christ's message of lovemay be used to sound exclusive instead of the inclusive example Jesus actuallytaught and lived. Sometimes it feelsheartbreaking that truth and faith and love ca…

When I was graduating high school, our yearbook staff held an election for hope in the form of our senior superlatives. You all may remember these from that time in your life. Each day at the lunch period, for a week, students could go to the special table in the lunchroom and cast their vote for their peers, that they felt were well deserving of a…

I do believe Paul's point is easily made at the end of ourreading. And that is that God's power ismade stronger in our human weakness. Therefore, boasting and weakness allows for Christ's powerand grace to be made more evident. Or, in our English translation of this, it'sperfected. But why? Why is the divine'spower perfected in weakness? Maybebecau…

I think we are all familiar with "Are we there yet?" In fact, I can't help thinking that the question, so familiar to family travelers, is an inborn genetic trait that is triggered one hour after the car leaves the driveway. Sometimes children even make a repetitive chant out of it, thus increasing its output a hundredfold before the parents put a …

I don't remember when I started seeing the oval decals on cars that say just 26.2, but for a long time, it puzzled me. I assumed it referred to a Bible verse, so I looked up all the "26.2's" in the Bible to see what message was being proclaimed. There was Exodus: "The length of each curtain shall be 28 cubits, and the width of each curtain 4 cubits…

Are we, perhaps, a little bit afraid of Pentecost? And what the spirit? A couple of weeks ago,our neighbors invited us to attend worship with them at their church. Word ofdeliverance. I'd been there a couple oftimes before, but this was my first outing there with my children. The band was poppin, the speakers wereblaring. The choir was on fire. Lit…

Think of someone who is suffering from addiction, from depression, from loneliness, self-rejection, rejection by the world. Distress due to finances. Meaningless of life. Think of them as being tossed into the ocean. Do we not hold on to Jesus, believe in our God and Christ so that we can be a lifeboat to others. By us sitting here, standing here, …

I don't know about you all, but I feel like I've had more than the usual number of encounters with geese this spring. Maybe you've had that experience too. Frequently as they're crossing a road... And if I don't see them immediately when I'm behind other cars, I will find that I'm experiencing considerable frustration.'Why are these people not movi…

A few years ago, when traveling anywhere was out of the question because of you-know-what, many homeowners thought of turning their own yards into destinations worthy of traveling to--and the staycation was born. My backyard was a blank slate full of weeds. I wanted a place outside that was worth traveling to, a yard that reminded me of places I'd …

While coming down the hill into Hyde Park on Ridge, I noticed a car stopped in the middle of the intersection, and a man standing at the back of his car. Without thinking it through, I pulled off to the side, saying to my sister, hold on, a guy is stuck in the intersection. I'll call you right back. And as I jumped out of my car to see what was goi…

Our hope rests in God. When God shows up and does thework of transformation, and resurrection in our lives, our part is to recognizeGod. And if you're not sure how to recognize God, look for love. And I mean, every time. Look for the love inyour life. And when you look there, you see God and you recognize that God hasbeen at work in resurrection al…

How many of you have been through hell with God by yourside, through the trials of your life, possibly testing you? How about when you get to the other side andGod is still there? You know in yourheart that you've made it through the hard times and hardships because of thatpresence that you can always count on. The presence that always seems to pro…

People were getting healed. There were rumors of a savior. We would overthrow our oppressors and be our true selves again under our true ruler. There were some disagreements among us at first, and some confusion, and some people got pretty belligerent, and they started arguing against us. And then, at the end, it's as if they got carried away with …

Hospitality is also an integral part of our storytonight. And it's the one that surprisedme. I consider myself a pretty greathost. I love when people come to my homefor dinner. I'm Greek, so there's always enough food to feed a small army. And I've crafted my own signaturecocktail. And I've brought brightlycolored linens home from my travels so I c…

Intimacy is connection. Knowing one another. Care andvulnerability. And what Mary shows tothis man who is not only her teacher, but her friend, and who we were remindedin this story is the one who literally raised her brother up from the dead. She drops to her knees and she pours perfume all over hisfeet and she takes her hair and wipes it off. And…

Jesus is describing his own death, a death he understands as necessary for our salvation. So, there's intimacy, vulnerability, and there's deep commitment born of love. We see all three of these in this Gospel reading. In our own lives are there moments we want to shy away. We want to turn away. We want to turn inward and avoid intimacy, avoid vuln…

Having his last supper with the disciples a troubledJesus announces that one of them is his betrayer. And do you know, if you read that carefully,every one of them is bewildered. They have no clue. And their uncertainty suggests that itcould be any one of them. A notableexample is Peter, who refutes that he would ever deny Jesus, but then does soth…

We know that the pain and the suffering is still to come. Thinking about the disciples more, are, are they walking along Jesus, flanking him? Might that be something we would have done? Or are some of them acting almost as an advance team, drawing the crowds, letting them know about Jesus, letting them know that here is the person they have been wa…

And often this change that we really want is todesperately go back to when we remember what we remember as simpler or betteror easier times. We want our churches to be like they were. And of course, theywere wonderful. We want them and ourworld to slow down and stop changing. But unfortunately, staying static or spending all of our energy andwords …

People come at us, and we're not really sure where they're coming from. And sometimes our first instinct is to take whatever energies come up that are thrown our way and throw it right back. Someone wants to come at you with some kind of anger or argument., you're going to knock them down. This is the way of our world friends. This is the way we th…

When Jesus gets angry, it's because someone is getting in the way of someone else experiencing God's love. In the case of the temple, the people that are there, are selling oxen and livestock and things like that which are meant for sacrifice according to the commandments, and that's part of how people atone, and keep their relationship with God. A…

He had on multiple occasions, masterfully bested fierceopposition for the most respected religious authorities. He astounded the crowds with his teachingsand actions. And he demonstrated boththe power and authority expected of a Messiah. However, such an expectation comes up short. It distorts one's vision and makes one seewith the human eyes on on…

You are a daughter of God, in you, God is wellpleased. You are a son of God, in you, God is well pleased. And I have heardthis and I have come to believe it and it has changed the way I understand mywhole relationship with God, to understand that I'm not trying to become abeloved child of God. I am beloved. I am God's son. And this is a part of my …

"Maybe your mother would be up on that hill or an aunt that helped you or a grandfather that mentored you. Would it be someone who has shaped the way you see the world like Moses and Elijah did? Would it be James Baldwin up on that hill or Ayn Rand or something like that? Moses and Elijah both had a sort of national reality. Would it be Thomas Jeff…

Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. I almost asked Deacon Gary to take a long pause after that verse in our gospel today, so all the women in the room could have a collective eye roll together. Please. The only woman spoken of in the beginning of Mark is sick and laid up in bed…

Well, how are we different from Jesus first disciples? Well, we have a significant advantage. We know what was accomplished through God's work through Jesus Christ. We know the end of the story. We know that like Jesus' disciples, we have been drawn into God's plan of reconciliation and restoration of creation. And we know that dropping our nets an…

You know how they say you are what you eat? Well, I've always been so curious about whythe Gospel writers found it necessary to share with us what John ate. Locustsand wild honey. What a strangedetail. I know we don't often take timeto dig into little things like this, but it's my job. So, I went down a rabbithole for several hours, and let me just…

We often forget the strangeness of this story that comes tous Because we've cleaned it up and made it so nice and familiar This sweet little baby this silent night all cuddled up and swaddling clothes But itwasn't like that was it? It was so much more real and raw and messy. A refugee family seeking shelter amonganimals A message of social upheaval…

In September, after I'd been here at Redeemer for only one month, I had to have cataract surgery. Never mind that I had decided when I was young that I would never need cataract surgery. Apparently it wasn't my decision. But people told me that cataract surgery is no big deal. That's true about the surgery. It's a simple procedure. What WAS a big d…

Empire is not a friend of anyone. Empire does not strive towards the well-being and thriving of every created life. Empire puts wealth, resources, knowledge, comfort, and God's abundance in the hands of a few. While others live lives of insecurity, uncertainty, misery, and hopelessness. An empire of human beings are nothing but a form of commodity …

You're downtown. You're on your way to the Bengals game,and you see a panhandler on the street with a sign. Hungry. Please give. You do one of three things. You pull out yourwallet and give him a dollar. Or you shake your head to say no. Or you look straight ahead, trying not tocatch his eye as you walk by him. And then you feel guilty and you wond…

You all may have heard this story from Jesus described asan economy of virtues. I've heard it that way in the past. God gives us each aspiritual gift some people are special, so they get more gifts, a veryconvenient translation for all the high achievers in the room. Anyway, everyonegets something and don't worry, God won't give you more than you c…

We can certainly relate to these foolish bridesmaids. I mean, I certainly can. In the busyness of our lives,not always are we able to think three or four or five steps ahead. Not always are we able to consider all of theadditional planning we need to have in mind. Particularly in the busyness of our lives, we may be hustling througheach day. We may…

Life is so complicated. It has so many experts, so muchadvice. We want to live well. We want to do well. So we turn to the experts.And so that's my excuse for telling you about the other day when I went withfriends to a Chinese restaurant. I don't usually meet for Chinese. I like mycooking just fine. But the restaurants have one thing that I don't …

When I was a child, my Yaya used to tell us that ourHalloween costumes are supposed to scare away the devil. So, the moreterrifying your costume, the better. But still, in the midst of it all, I hadthis overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by terror. It felt like more thanjust a children's game. Just then, a familiar tune played in my head. "Le…

And we can choose not to allow God to influence our beliefs.We can believe what we already believed and then approach the altar of God andhope to leave unchanged. By saying, these things are the things that God caresabout and these are our concerns. We can walk into this space and leave ourcares and troubles for the world out there and come in here…

We recognize authority. We place our trust in the people thatwe recognize are actually doing the work of love in our lives. Think for amoment about those you actually trust. The people in whom you put your trust.Is it the people with all the best words? Or is it the people that you haveseen, time and again, show up for you in love and care. We plac…