Author: trob

Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, …. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear” [Matthew 13:3a, 8-9, New International Version]. Some five or six years ago, Jane and I had a crazy idea. We’d grow a few tomato plants and perhaps a few squash in an allocated portion of a community garden. A couple of green thumb friends agreed to help. Our plot was the size of a two-person grave site. By the end…

He replied, “The LORD, before whom I have walked faithfully, will send his angel with you and make your journey a success, so that you can get a wife for my son from my own clan and from my father’s family” [Genesis 24:40, New International Version]. Genesis 24 has 67 verses. That’s too many, of course, for a typical Old Testament lesson for Sunday worship. If we were to read the entire chapter, plus some of the other readings appointed for this week, we’d be late for brunch or lunch. And so, the Lectionary committee decided to hit the highlights of the extended Chapter 24— “Isaac gets a wife” —story…

And it happened after these things that God tested Abraham. And He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Take, pray, your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall say to you” [Genesis 22:1-2 (The Hebrew Bible, tr. by Robert Alter). As I have allowed on a number of occasions over the past 35 years or so, there is a tendency for many of us to examine the familiar stories of both the Old and New Testaments and convince…

And the LORD appeared to him in the Terebinths [oaks] of Mamre when he was sitting by the tent flap in the heat of the day. And he raised his eyes and saw, and, look, three men were standing before him [Genesis 18:1-2a, The Hebrew Bible, translated by Robert Alter]. The OT lesson appointed for this upcoming Sunday, Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7 [the Third Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year A], is one of my favorites. I wrote about it three years ago when we were in the early months of the you-know-what. Many of you know the Genesis story quite well. It has at least one, perhaps two, humorous turns. The…

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him [Matthew 9:9] Some years ago, a physician in a mid-sized Southern town, then in his late thirties, silently assessed his situation. The Rubicon lay before him. He and his partners had just finished their regular quarterly financial meeting. They had discussed the health of their practice; it was on solid ground. They’d discussed a few minor staffing issues. Most of their talk, however, had been about indigent care. It was far from their first discussion of the topic. Several in…

And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, by our likeness, to hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and the cattle and the wild beasts and all the crawling things that crawl upon the earth [Genesis 1:26]. I vividly remember the first time I sought to teach Genesis. It was about 1983 or so, about three years before Jane and I took the leap required for me to enroll in Duke Divinity School for graduate study. I was leading and teaching a wonderfully active and unruly crowd of young adults in the Sunday School department at First UMC, Gastonia.…

No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy [Acts 2:16-18]. Growing up in a conservative congregation in what was then rural Gaston County (NC), I was taught that Pentecost was “the birthday” of the Church. By that we did not mean the birthday of “our” Olney…

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” [Acts 1:6]. As some of you know, Jane and I honeymooned on Hilton Head Island, way back in late August 1971. We’ve been back for at least one week each year since that first matrimonial excursion. When the kids were small—our youngest, Gray is now 37-years-old and has three of his own—they said what all children heading to the mountains or the beach say as soon as their homes are out of sight, “Are we there yet?” In the first lesson appointed for this Sunday, Acts 1:6-14 [Ascension…

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed [Acts 17:32-33a]. How do you preach the Gospel in a university town? That’s what Paul must have been thinking when he arrived in Athens more than 1900 years ago. Things had gone alright in Thessalonica, or so he’d tried to convince himself. There, he’d followed his usual evangelism protocol. He’d arrived in town, introduced himself at a synagogue, discussed—then argued—the meaning of scripture with the local officials, told anyone…

But filled with the Holy Spirit, [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him [Acts 7:55-57]. In his short but weighty piece, “Meditation in a Toolshed” [from God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics], C.S. Lewis describes an unusual, enlightening encounter that occurred while he was standing in a dark toolshed. Outside, the sun was shining brightly. Through the crack at the…