Ephphatha… let our ears be open, let our hearts be open. Amen It is convenient, in some sense, that this Gospel reading is actually two short stories. One could preach on one or the other. The second one is a straightforward story of healing of a deaf mute, with a fun Aramaic word. The first story can give a preacher all kinds of trouble, like indigestion. So, we will stick with the indigestion story, the first story. Why in the world would I say it could give you indigestion? (and why in the world stick with the harder story… ?) The answers are related. The story troubles many people, preachers included, for numerous reasons. First is that Jesus seems mean, surly, even nasty. This woman didn’t do anything to deserve this treatment other than not being born a Jew, and I’m not sure that being a Gentile merits this treatment.…

I was born and raised Episcopalian. (Someone once pointed out that only Episcopalians add the term “cradle” to that, I’m a cradle Episcopalian. And in fact, I was placed in a cradle.) And I’m not what one would consider popish, but generally I do love this Pope, Pope Francis. I think he gets it right 99% of the time. Even still, there are times when we read something he does or say, and we make a face plant. That’s probably because everything that comes out of his mouth is analyzed to pieces. I’m probably not even a C-student when it comes to analyzing what comes out of my own mouth. All that said, this week, a friend from high school, an Orthodox Jew, shared an article critiquing the pope around some comments he had made. You might find this interesting, you might not, but essentially it revisits early statements made…

I want to point out something in this Gospel passage: people complain about Jesus. These crowds are following around this iterant preacher, who stops periodically and teaches them, and they don’t like what he is saying. One could stop and wonder why anyone wants to get into the business of being a Jesus follower, of proclaiming the gospel – clergy, lay leaders, missionaries – why do we bother at all? If people are complaining about Jesus himself, then there is really no chance that the rest of us are not going to take some heat too. I think this has perhaps more to say to us than we may first realize. Let’s just start with the premise that accepting the teachings of Jesus is hard. It’s not just hard for the folks that decided they would complain about Jesus and leave. It is just plain hard. Because being Christian is…

I have a friend who is an adult convert to Christianity. She was raised in a home that was somewhere between atheist and agnostic. She said one of the hardest things about this was in high school when she did not get the Christian references in Shakespeare. Christianity is in our cultural fabric. Shakespeare was hard enough, but to have to look up all the Biblical references, made it that much harder. We may not realize this, but this referencing back also happens within the Bible itself. I had an Old Testament professor who likened this to the concept of Remixing, when a popular artist remixes an older familiar tune. Most of the time, we, members of a denomination who do not quote scripture: chapter and verse, are unaware when it happens. Sometimes we hear a remix in the New Testament readings, as a reference to a prophetic Hebrew text,…

Today’s story shares in a theme across Old Testament and Gospel stories of feeding, the summer breadbasket of John stories we see in the Markan year B of the lectionary. (Mark is a short Gospel so we get a lot of John during the summer, which focuses on Jesus feeding others.) Our reading from 1 Kings has a much more familiar backstory and story that follows than the short passage we have today. Prior to this passage, Elijah does battle with the prophets or wizards of Baal. Essentially it is a Baal/ God show down. Of course, God wins, and this infuriates Queen Jezebel (yes, that same Jezebel) who was a Baal follower. She then swears she will make Elijah pay, pay with his very life. After Elijah gets his nourishment in today’s story, he will go to Mount Horeb where he has his encounter with God who you may…

One of the things that I find perplexing in life is how we can be more accepting of religions outside Christianity, religions that are vastly different than our own; yet, many mainline protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism can be less tolerant of evangelical Christians, and vice versa, than they are of other religions. And between Roman Catholics and evangelicals, it seems to be a chasm. It is somewhat a puzzle. Somehow or other adhering to the same beliefs but with a different flavor feels more threatening than a different belief system altogether. Yet let us keep in mind the message from Ephesians. This Pauline writer is preaching unity, not uniformity. We share a belief, and despite our differences, we are one body, we follow Jesus, Jesus who is one body broken for us, we follow one God. But we are all one, following Jesus who gives life. We have unity…