As I mentioned in a post late last week, I was torn between continuing my devotional reading of Luke and jumping to the Passion for Lent and then coming back to where we left off. I asked for help…and you gave it. The overwhelming preference was to move to the Passion now. So we will! With that in mind, just a few things to orient us to Luke in general and, in particular, Luke’s story of our Lord’s Passion. Of the four evangelists, Luke is the one who most clearly thinks of himself as a historian. Not a 21st century historian, mind you, but a 1st century historian who tells a story in order to teach the truth…which is of course...

Okay, face it – you clicked on this post because of its title…or maybe the picture. Either way, indulge me while I set it up. Radio Lab is one of my favorite radio programs that I almost never listen to. Not, I swear, because I don’t love it – it’s just that I rarely find the time to sit and listen – to anything! – for an hour, so even when I download episode after episode most of them sit in my iTunes queue waiting for my next road trip. But this Saturday I happened to be running some errands. A lot of errands. And since most of them involved lots of driving and only minimal in-and-out of the car, I got to listen to most of an...

Somewhere along the way of my early career in ministry, it dawned on me that the central task of preaching is simply to tell the truth. Actually, to tell the truth twice. The first truth is the truth of our lives. Our hopes and disappointments, our accomplishments and set backs, our dreams and fears. What matters is that it is true – deeply, candidly, courageously true. The second truth is God’s truth – the truth of God’s unrelenting mercy, grace, goodness and love. The truth of God’s acceptance of us just as we are. The truth of God’s profound and sacrificial love made manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus...

In the gospel reading appointed for this Sunday, Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed. In an article I wrote on that passage, I wondered whether the gospel always sounds a little crazy to those who first hear it…or maybe just to those who take it seriously. That is, the more seriously you take the gospel, the more crazy, or outlandish, or impossible, or even possessed, it sounds. And I kind of think that’s the way it has to be simply because what’s sane, normal, everyday, and expected doesn’t, I think, have the power to transform us, let alone save us. By way of illustration: near the beginning of his lengthy...