Month: September 2021

He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery” [Mark 10:11-12].   I don’t have the pincite handy, but St. Augustine once wrote, “If you believe what you like in the Gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it isn’t the Gospel that you believe, but rather yourself.” That, in a nutshell, is why both my personal devotional practice and these weekly meditations are built upon the Revised Common Lectionary’s appointed set of Scripture readings. In following the RCL’s three-year cycle, not only am I exposed to a broad swath of…

If the LORD had not been on our side—let Israel say—if the LORD had not been on our side … [Psalm 124:1-2a]. College football has changed substantially since my Wake Forest years (1969-76). You’d be correct, of course, if you replied, “What hasn’t?” As participants have grown bigger and faster, a whole new set of safety rules has come into play. At many schools—I won’t say which, although I’m thinking of one in South Carolina whose name begins with a “C” and ends with an “N,”—football is big business. During my WFU years, in business terms, Wake Forest football was bankrupt. Jokes circulated about our ineptitude. One year, at the…

Then he took a child and had him stand in front of them. He put his arms around him and said to them, “Whoever welcomes in my name one of these children, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not only me but also the one who sent me” [Mark 9:36-37, Good News Translation]. One of the more unusual episodes in the life of the first century Palestinian rabbi named Jesus is described in the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday (Mark 9:30-37, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B). Unfortunately, if one reads only the appointed verses, one misses some important contextual elements. For example, beginning in…

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom [Isaiah 35:1] This Sunday, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year B), the Lectionary committee provides us with six readings. The OT reading is a curious one, Isaiah 35:4-7a, not so much because it lacks importance, but rather, due to its brevity. Why not include the entire chapter? It consists only of ten verses that form a cohesive poem. Not to travel too far down into the weeds, lest you think I’m an Isaiah expert—I’m not—but most modern Isaiah scholars see chapters 34 and 35 as a distinct, separate segment of the overall book. Here, we…