Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. - Philippians 2:9-10 (NIV) I have never been a fan of those WWJD bracelets, where the initials stand for the question, “What would Jesus do?” Although the WWJD message was coined in the late 1800s (by a Congregationalist minister!) within the Social Gospel movement, in its resurgence over

You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated and my spirit asked: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will God never show favor again? Has God’s unfailing love vanished forever? Has that promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has God in anger withheld compassion?” - Psalm 77:4-9 (NIV) Sleepless nights are a part of this pandemic fo

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1 (NRSV) It was scary enough when the young white man stood up in the middle of the Drag Gospel Festival worship service and started screaming religious invective, telling us we were in Satan's clutches. Every mind immediately went to Mother Emmanuel AME Church, where nine people had been shot dead by another young white man, just for being

What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. - Psalm 8:4-5 (NRSV) “Sunday – Aug. 9 1981. Dear Jennifer. Your letter from camp came yesterday. I am so glad you are enjoying it and making friends.” Among a stack of teen love notes and cartoons clipped from The New Yorker, these words jumped out at me. My Grammy wrote thousands, maybe tens of thousand

“Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!” - Luke 18:5 (NIV) Finally, the widow broke the judge down. She shook her finger and her face at him and on him just enough to finally prevail. She was a pest. If you have ever been pestered, you know her. She has no boundaries. She doesn’t know when to stop. She is like a virus, infecting all within reach. She is powerful. She needs a flyswatter or a v

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. - Psalm 119:105 (NRSV) I do whatever I can to avoid talking about sex in church. It’s messy; it tends to invite follow-up conversations I don't want to have. My avoidance, however, comes at the expense of people who so often need help creating a faithful, Christ-centered, unoppressive sexual ethic. Fortunately, good ethicists have already done this work. Professor Margaret Farley, a Roman Catholic Sister of Mercy, pub

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when Peter noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” - Matthew 14:28-30 (NRSV) Suppose Peter was not called out of the boat only to walk on water. Suppose he was called out of the boat to sink, to know his vulnerability and remember

“We remember the fish we had in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” - Numbers 11:5 (NRSV) There are lots of foods I like: lemon meringue pie, enchiladas, blueberry muffins. Even some I crave: chocolate in any form. But cucumbers, leeks, and onions? Hardly. Two years after the exodus, such vegetables were much on the minds of the Israelites. Stirred up by the “rabble among them,” they cried out for cucumbers. It’s a strange request. Un

The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar … and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? - 2 Peter 3:10-11 (NIV) In Jennifer Egan’s novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Lincoln is an autistic boy who’s obsessed with the false endings contained in some rock songs – those pauses that bands stretch out to leave their listeners on a cliff's

Surely salvation is at hand for those who fear the Lord … Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. - Psalm 85:9-10 (NRSV) Whenever early Christians gathered, they exchanged a kiss, channeling the post-resurrection Jesus, who kissed his disciples with healing and peace. “My peace I give you,” he said, and breathed on them. His kiss was a breeze from Paradise, a drink from the River of Life. The kiss of peace was a sign of bel