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Tag: Jesus

Get in the Boat!

Published August 6, 2020 by trob

When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid” [Matthew 14:26-27 (NIV)]. One of the harshest phenomena of the COVID-19 pandemic has been its effect on funerals and memorial services. It isn’t enough that the disease has taken more than 160,000 souls in our land (2,076 in North Carolina, 79 in Durham County, at last count); social-distancing rules mean there have been virtually no memorial services for those lost to friends and family. Generally speaking, unless one’s death can be utilized by protesters…

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The Light-Sabered Farmer

Published July 9, 2020 by trob

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow” [Matthew 13:3]. Although it has been almost 33 years since the day the transforming conversation took place, I remember it as if it were yesterday. The time was Autumn 1987. I was a 36-year-old second-year seminarian at Duke. The setting was a homiletics class, consisting of 10 or 12 divinity school students like me — all of whom, unlike me, were in their early 20s — together with our skilled and thoughtful professor, the Rev. Dr. Richard Lischer, who was/is just a few years older than me. The small size of the class and…

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