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Month: August 2021

The Birds and the Bees

My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone [Song of Solomon 2:10-11]. This Saturday (August 28), Jane and I celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. I remember—as if it was just last week—the moment I followed the Rev. Dr. Charles Shannon through the side door of the chapel at First UMC in Gastonia, at High Noon, on a partly cloudy, hot August Saturday. Ours was a small wedding, with about 100 friends and family present. A minute or two after my entrance (twin brother, Todd, was my best man), Jane and…

A Pilgrim’s Journey

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God [Psalm 84:1-2]. This week—the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B—the Revised Common Lectionary favors us with two readings from the Psalter. We may opt for selected verses from the 34th. Alternatively, we may choose the entirety of the Psalm that is numbered 84. Over the past day or so, as I have thought and prayed about the pilgrimage of a close friend from his earthly existence to his place in the church triumphant, I have been…

Food Fight

Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” [John 6:53-55, NIV]. “Come on, we’re leaving,” said the Hebrew man to his son and daughter. “He’s speaking blasphemy.” The son, who was in his mid-teens, protested, “Father, please. This man is different. You heard some of them say it earlier. ‘He teaches as one with authority.’ He…

The Predicament

Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak. His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth [2 Samuel 18:9b, NRSV]. Not that it makes any difference, but I’ve long been less than comfortable with the notion espoused in 1 Samuel 13:14, that David was “a man after Yahweh’s own heart.” By the way, the point is repeated in Acts 13:22. To be sure, the whole Goliath business shows David to be a faithful and courageous young man. But once David became king, he seems to have let his absolute power get to…