I recently read the story of Judas, the backstabber, one of Jesus' closest friends. The moral majority of his day paid Judas to conspire with them to arrest Jesus. After this collusion was initiated, Jesus served the Passover meal (what we now call the Last Supper) to his disciples---including Judas. As I read this story […]

It is amazing to me how Jesus is being used to justify the exact behaviors he preached so vociferously against. The one who declared that loving our neighbors as ourselves is God's very heartbeat is being used to justify hatred of the most vulnerable. The one who pushed the religious elite of his day to […]

Today is Maundy Thursday - a reminder in the Christian calendar of the night Jesus served the Passover meal to his rag tag group of disciples, including the great betrayer, Judas, and the great denier, Peter. He served them the bread, poured them the wine and said -- oh so cryptically -- this is my […]

Jesus said nothing about gay marriage or transgender children or abortion. Nothing. But Jesus had quite a lot to say about mercy. In his Sermon on the Mount - his treatise on the way life is to be lived in the Kingdom of God - Jesus says, right out of the blocks: “Blessed are the […]

Are you as exhausted as I am of this particular election season? Weary of hateful words, threats of violence, attack ads, tension in the air? In the midst of a culture that feels about to split apart at the seams, in the midst of apprehension about what is to come, in the midst of a […]

A year ago, after a somewhat rocky Christmas Eve, I woke at 4 AM and wrote this essay to read to my family before we ate monkey bread and frittata and drank some mimosas. I read it again this year before our traditional Christmas morning repast and it seemed to resonate with my people. I […]