The Riverside Gathering Posts

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating [Isaiah 65:17-18a]. Some years ago, in a Bible study that I was leading at the time, we decided to take a look at the prophet, Isaiah. Realizing that if we followed an “A to Z” approach, we’d be “in the book” forever, I suggested that we take eight or ten weeks to examine some of Isaiah’s “big” text passages. One such passage was Isaiah 65:17-25, the OT reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday [the Twenty-third Sunday…

Although first century Sadducees are often conjoined with the Pharisees in New Testament discussions, there was but one issue upon which they agreed: their opposition to Jesus. As you know, the Sadducees, sometimes referred to as “scribes,” were the primary authority within and over the Jerusalem Temple. They recognized as authoritative only the five Books of Moses—the Pentateuch. The Pharisees agreed that the Pentateuch was authoritative, but they also revered the writings of the Psalmist and the Prophets (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.). Because the Pentateuch contained no reference to an afterlife—there are numerous such references in the writings of the Prophets–the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. And…

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? [Habakkuk 1:2]. As I comb through the “Matrix”—my electronic system that houses a long-running journal, my sermons, homilies, meditations (like this one), and notes on scripture passages, I see a hole. Over these many years, I have devoted virtually no time at all to the minor prophet, Habakkuk. My only reference is buried in some notes I’ve assembled on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Quoting from Habakkuk 2:4, St. Paul gives us one of his core theological principles: “the righteous shall live by faith” [Romans 1:17].…

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector [Luke 18:9-10]. In last week’s meditation, I allowed that Jesus’ parables are affirmatively unlike Aesop’s fables. They aren’t straightforward little vignettes, each with a clear lesson at the end to help us along in our everyday life. As Rick Lischer taught me so many years ago, if we seriously examine a parable, we’ll usually find that it tells us something we might not want to hear. Rather than smooth our feathers, Jesus’…

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart …. “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” [Luke 18:1, 6-8]. For many years, I had what I think was an erroneous understanding of Jesus’ parables. That is to say that for the first half of my life, I thought of them essentially as scriptural stories in the manner of Aesop’s Fables.…

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce [Jeremiah 29:4-5]. For many years now, I’ve long been drawn to Jeremiah, one of the least likely theological leaders in the Hebrew Bible. He’s from the wrong side of the tracks. A native of Anathoth, in the territory of Benjamin, Jeremiah had a lot going against him. Benjamin was the home of the first king, Saul. At the time, the Israelites wanted a king worse than anything else in the world. That’s what…

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you …” [Luke 17:5-6]. A few years ago, in “P.C.” times (i.e., “pre-COVID”), a parishioner shared with her pastor that her adult daughter was going through a difficult time. The woman asked if the pastor would be willing to talk to the daughter and he quickly agreed. Prior to the meeting, the mother filled the pastor in a bit. Her son-in-law had, for the second time, been caught in an…

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land [Jeremiah 32:14-15]. In the late summer of 1977, one year after Jane and I had returned to Gastonia following my law school graduation, we decided that I’d take a short break from law practice in order that we might head down to Atlanta for a long weekend.…

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! [Jeremiah 19:22 – 9:1] As I noted a few weeks ago, the prophet Jeremiah writes to a particular audience at a particular time in its history. The audience is the kingdom of Judah, more particularly, those who live in Jerusalem. The time is roughly 600 B.C.E. As we saw several weeks ago, when we examined portions…

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. [1 Timothy 1:12-14]. Among the many stories told by our friend, the master preacher/storyteller, Will Willimon, in his provocative, challenging, and entertaining Accidental Preacher: A Memoir (Eerdmans, 2019), is that of a “sophomore dream trip to Europe” in 1966, which Will says he…