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Preparing a Place

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-24I have always held a special place in my heart for the Parable of the Sower, probably because my earliest childhood memories include vague images of tripping through our community...

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Waiting for the Children of Godot

Romans 8:12-25Lately I have been thinking about the absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. Anyone who has seen or read it knows that the plot, along with the scenery on stage, is...

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Mustard, Mustard, and More Mustard

Matthew 13:31-33For the better part of thirty years I have been a die-hard vegetable gardener, and probably a little snootier about it than I should be. In my mind, flowers have always been a nice...

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Blessing, Breaking, and Giving

Matthew 14:13-21It is appropriate, I think, that our text for this week falls on the third day of August, a time of year when the garden is practically bursting at the seams with vegetables. I spent...

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Fishermen Rush In

Matthew 14:22-33Miracles – I don't know what to do with them. In the first place, apart from being improbable in a world that we know to be governed quite nicely by the laws of physics, miracles always...

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Gathering Others

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8Matthew 15:21-28I'm not really sure what drew me to Lars and the Real Girl, but after seeing the film last night it has immediately become one of my favorites. It wasn't the clever...

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Compassion over Law

Exodus 1:8-2:10 Matthew 16:13-20 It's a week before classes begin at Hastings College, so I have taken this final opportunity to get out of town for a few days and visit one of my favorite parts of the...

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Ever on Holy Ground

Exodus 3:1-15If there is one thing that Jerry Seinfeld and I have in common – apart from our tendency to hang out with some pretty eccentric people (and you know who you are) – it's our rather childish...

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Who Is My Neighbor?

The following is an excerpt from my book, Learning the Language of the Fields, which I found to be relevant to the Season of Creation lectionary texts for this week.Genesis 2:4b-22 When we consider the...

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Baptism in Dirt

Season of Creation 2A: Land SundayGenesis 3:14-19; 4:8-16Matthew 12:38-40Living in south central Nebraska, one comes to know the seasons by their distinctive signs. Every March, for example, the...

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The Return of Virtue

Exodus 32:1-14It feels good finally to get my fingers on a keyboard again! With the start of a new school year I'm always a little harried trying to cover all the bases – making sure all of my advisees...

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Allies or Enemies?

Matthew 22:15-22As I write this morning, the first whispers of a gray autumn are in the air, and thankfully so because in Nebraska we have been enjoying an Indian summer for quite some time. Yesterday...

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Shock and Awe in the Kingdom of God

Amos 5:18-24If there is any day on our civic calendar that approximates the religious ritual of atonement it would have to be the first Tuesday in November. While historians are fairly resolved on the...

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Wrath of God 2.0

Zephaniah 1:7-18Matthew 25:14-30When I look back on my early childhood images of God I realize that such notions as wrath and judgment really had little influence on my budding faith in the Creator....

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Broken Bodies, Breaking Bread

Thanksgiving 2008Growing up in Ohio I was raised on stories of Johnny Appleseed, the itinerant sower who probably never had the chance to reap the fruits of his labors. His was a vocation forged in...

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Escape from Babylon

Isaiah 40:1-11Mark 1:1-8Psalm 85Before I begin, I would just like to wish everyone a happy New Year. Yes, I know that January 1 is roughly a month away, but I'm getting started early on a resolution...

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Potato Stamp Epiphany

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11One of the great benefits of teaching religion to college students is the sneak-peak I get every so often of what the church might look like in twenty or thirty years. Every Monday...

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Bizarro-World

Luke 2:1-20John 1:1-14About five years ago, in one of my periodic attempts to purge myself of excesses, I made the happy decision to do away with that luminescent demon we all know as television. I...

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The Myrrh's the Thing

Isaiah 60:1-6Matthew 2:1-12The spring semester will soon begin at Hastings College and this means that I will once again be teaching an introductory course in the New Testament, something I look...

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Baptism or New Creation?

Genesis 1:1-5Mark 1:4-11When I was in eighth grade I experienced my first independent excursion away from home when I attended a week-long church camp in what was then a rather remote part of central...

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The Cause of Their Falling

I Corinthians 8:1-13I will admit something that no good Protestant – let alone a Presbyterian – should have any business revealing: sometimes I just don’t get what the apostle Paul is trying to say,...

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Strange Faith

This essay originally appeared in the journal Lumunos (Spring 2009). Job 38:1-11 A little over seven years ago I made the move from Knoxville, Tennessee, nestled in the gentle arms of the Cumberland...

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Too Much and Too Little

2 Corinthians 8:7-15I have mentioned elsewhere in these pages that I have never been overly enthusiastic about the Apostle Paul. Perhaps I have latent Judaizing tendencies, like so many of Paul's...

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Earthly Vision

2 Corinthians 12:2-10Every year about this time I'm fascinated by a transition in my town that may appear to some as wholly unremarkable. Around the first of May the grocery and hardware stores in...

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A Kingdom Not of This World: A Good Earth Day Reflection

John 18:1 - 19:42Of all my childhood memories I hold a special place in my heart for the day when I came to realize that I was part of something much greater than myself. Nineteen seventy was a...

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