Category Archives: Uncategorized

2 Samuel 5:1-5  Honest souls wrestle with biblical texts. This is especially true as we carefully make our way through the Hebrew Scriptures. Violence fills many of these pages, making lots of their stories NSFFG (not suitable for flannelgraph). So we never heard them in Sunday school, nor, tellingly, in our lectionary readings.  Our Scripture […]

Mark 3:31-35 In P. D. Eastman’s beloved children’s book Are You My Mother? a tiny bird hatches out of his shell while his mother is away from her nest. The story follows the plucky hatchling’s search for his mother and his identity. Predictably, this search takes him to all the wrong places.  Twice, Mark opens […]

Ruth 1:22 For millions, Jerusalem is the center of the world. This is the city David built, for which the Jews mourned in exile. Jesus prayed and wept over Jerusalem. The prophet Ezekiel reimagined this city as the place where God’s divine glory would be displayed among the nations (Ezek 47). Yet in spite of […]

Ruth 1:19-21 A decade can go by in a blink, and ten years can feel like a lifetime. For Naomi and her former neighbors, ten years must seem like the latter. When the women last saw Naomi, she was a wife with young sons. Now she is widowed, childless, and returning with her Moabite daughter-in-law. […]

Ruth 1:15-18 What are the conversations like in Naomi’s household as resources and hopes dwindle? What do they say as they consider leaving Moab? What’s discussed when the jungle looms before them? At Naomi’s second urging, Orpah changes her mind, kisses Naomi goodbye, and trudges back up the path into Moab. After watching her go, […]

Ruth 1:10-14 Naomi has set her face to the west. She is going home to Bethlehem, widowed and childless after more than a decade in a foreign land. She has no idea whether she will be welcomed or rejected. The road home is a footpath through the jungle-filled wilderness of the Jordan River Valley. Stopping […]

Ruth 1:6-9 Three figures huddle on a narrow footpath, indistinguishable in their robes and veils. Scant provisions and meager belongings lie in bundles at their feet. Behind them is the dusty village that was once their home. Before them is a jungle-filled valley. Naomi, the eldest, is leaving her losses in Moab and heading home […]

Ruth 1:1-5 When viewed from outer space, the earth has a deep gash running from the foot of Mount Hermon on the Lebanese-Syrian border into the Dead Sea. This gash is the Jordan River Valley. Three millennia ago, this valley was an extension of the Syrian-African Rift Valley with its thick and wild jungle. It […]

Mark 12:28-31 As Jesus travels with his disciples, he frequently finds himself confronted by opponents who want to argue or trick him into a sound-byte he’ll regret.  But after a brief dispute with the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in personal resurrection, a scribe appears to ask Jesus a life-sized question that does seem rooted in […]

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 I heard about a preacher who asked, “Are you listening?” throughout his sermons. I’ve never done that. What if no one answered? If that happened, move to the benediction as soon as possible. Hear, O Israel is more a command than a question (v. 4). The Deuteronomy writer is calling Israel to attention. […]