Pentecost 21 B – The Rich Man and the Rest o...

Mark 10:17-31 Dear Partner in Preaching, I am blessed to have far more wonderful things to do each than I can possibly accomplish, so I am running behind on this post yet again. Because the week is quickly running away and my to-do list is still quite long, I’ve simply jotted down a few observations from previous and more recent encounters with this text below, hoping they are minimally helpful. In no particular order, an uneven, but biblically significant :), seven thoughts: 1) On how these stories work: It’s easy to think that this is somehow about a guy who lived a long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away?) who loved his...

Pentecost 20 B: Curing Our Heartsickness

Dear Partner in Preaching, I don’t know about you, but as I kid I found these verses just terrifying. And, to be honest, my reaction as an adult hasn’t changed all that much. Here they are, just to focus our conversation: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ And when he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is...

Small Boy Jul26

Small Boy

I am currently preparing for a conference on stewardship and so perhaps it’s not surprising that I read Norman MacCaig’s poem “Small Boy” through that lens. His musing on the need to practice letting things go…and the difficulty most of us have in doing just that, I find not just...

Luke 20:9-19

He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenants, and went to another country for a long time. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard; but the tenants beat...

Mark 12:41-44

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has...