Month: March 2025

<blockquote> <p>The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year [Joshua 5:9–12].</p> </blockquote> <p>This…

O God, you are my God; I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water [Psalm 63:1]. Jane and I have a dear friend who has spent the better part of two years confined to his bed. His back pain, persistent and unyielding, has created boundaries around his life that few of us can truly comprehend. His world has narrowed to the dimensions of his bedroom and the adjoining den, the daily landscape unchanged except for the shifting of light across the ceiling. The slow rotation of an overhead fan marks time, whispering through…

Abram’s Journey of Faith After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” (Genesis 15:1) Why Abram? The question lingers whenever I reflect on the Genesis 15 text—the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday, the Second Sunday in Lent, Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 [RCL, Year C]. Why would YHWH choose a childless, aging nomad to become the father of nations? To be sure, throughout Scripture, YHWH’s choices often confound human wisdom—the youngest son [David—1 Samuel 16:11-13); the forgotten shepherd [Moses—Exodus 3:1-10]; barren women [Sarah—Genesis 18:1-15; Hannah—1 Samuel 1; Elizabeth—Luke 1:5-25]; and…

As we enter the season of Lent, our liturgical journey takes us from the mountaintop of last Sunday’s Transfiguration directly into the stark wilderness where Jesus faces testing. In Luke’s account, which serves as the Gospel reading appointed for this Sunday [Luke 4:1-13, RCL, Year C], we read that Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit,” is led by that same Spirit into the wilderness for forty days. What unfolds there is often framed as a battle between good and evil—Jesus versus the devil, each wielding scripture. Jesus answers with words from Deuteronomy [8:3]; the tempter counters with a passage from Psalm 91. To me, what’s interesting isn’t just that both…