Christmas Eve meditation 2

Courtesy of Irish theologian Bono...

“That there’s a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it. But the idea that that same love and logic would choose to describe itself as a baby born in shit and straw and poverty is genius and brings me to my knees, literally.”

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Snark attack

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis is not among my favorite books, but in it he does highlight one eternal truth: some people prefer a self-inflicted, self-contained misery to an experience of grace. As an extremely brief synopsis, the main character is taken on an eschatological bus ride, during which he meets many fellow travelers, each of whom carries a perpetual cloud of cantankerousness over themselves. The bus departs from a land of dreary grays and eventually arrives at what is basically the Microsoft Windows wallpaper--rolling hills, green fields, blue skies--rich colors and lush scenery all around. Despite the improvement in their surroundings, his fellow travelers continue to find things to complain about. In fact, their bodies cannot physically adjust to the beauty of their new surroundings. While wandering through the greenery they discover that they are, in fact, ghosts who lack corporeal bodies. They cannot acclimate to the weightiness, the substantiveness of this new rea...

SERMON: The Great Omission (Mt. 28:16-20)

This sermon was delivered at Yale Divinity School in 2020 for the class Sacred Moments in African-American Preaching. I begin with a simple observation. Of the four canonical gospels, Matthew is the only one that ends with the words of Jesus. Mark, Luke, and John all end in the narrator’s voice, but Matthew closes with the words of Jesus. Mark ends at the tomb, with the women fleeing in terror and amazement. Luke ends with the disciples in Jerusalem, praising at the temple. John ends on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, with a dialogue between Jesus and Peter. And here Matthew ends with the disciples in Galilee, meeting Jesus at the mountain where he had directed them. Matthew gives Jesus the last word. But before we get to those last words, there are three other words in this passage that I call to our attention because I find them astonishing. Let me read verse 17 once more. “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some do...

Where have I been?

What a presumptuous question! But this is a blog, after all, and presumably someone is reading it--that's what the blog's statistics indicate, anyway. I haven't posted at all since Christmas because during my two weeks "off" for Christmas break I: prepared the children's Christmas sermon with my pastoral partner, Dan Yang; wrote the senior high curriculum for the winter youth group retreat; and prepared a seminar for the retreat on the Old Testament. All that took place the first week. The second week was spent at the retreat, from which I got back just in time for the New Year's service. So going back to school on January 3 was actually a welcome break from my break. Since I've been back on campus I've been immersed in my readings for Christianity's Cultured Critics, my course for the fall short term. The readings are not light (Hume, Kant, Schleiermacher, etc.), and I have to keep a daily critical log and prepare a group project for the l...

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