Oct 23
I was recently leading a discussion with a group of young adults. We were talking about the Sabbath, about what it is, what it isn’t, etc. We were looking at the story from the twelfth chapter of Matthew’s gospel where Jesus healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. We looked at his confrontation with the religious leaders, and pondered his famous words, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Read more
I’ve had a few conversations recently about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book The Message. Coates is, of course, massively popular due to books like Between the World and Me, among others. He was a correspondent with The Atlantic and has garnered a large audience due to his writings on social and political issues, specifically on matters of racial injustice and white supremacy.
Read more
One of my main tasks each Sunday during worship is to pray. Some Sundays, I pray extemporaneously; other Sundays I like to have something more formal, a scaffolding upon which to hang the various things we wish to bring before God and one another during worship. Last Sunday, for example, I used a formal prayer from the back of our hymnal. It was a good prayer. It covered a lot of territory from the global to the personal. It highlighted various aspects of God’s nature and character. It contained the familiar refrain, “Lord, in your mercy… hear our prayer.” Good stuff. Read more
Among the readings I encountered during morning prayer today was Psalm 17:1-7. It is a plea for divine vindication, protection, blessing, and favour from the pen of David. I have long had something of a complicated relationship with the Psalms. I know that the Psalms are the prayer-book of the church, that really smart and spiritual people pray them every day. And they do express the full range of human emotion. And they do contain some of the most beautiful and exalted language in all of Scripture. But sometimes the implicit theology doesn’t land. It strikes me as true-ish, but not true enough. Read more
I’ve been slowly making my way through Marilynne Robinson’s beautiful commentary on Genesis. It’s called, simply, Reading Genesis, and those who know anything about Robinson or her work will not be surprised to learn that it reads rather differently than a typical biblical commentary. Her soaring prose, her seemingly effortless command of complex biblical, historical, and philosophical issues, and the ways in which she weaves all this together in conversation with an ancient text is marvellous to behold. Read more
I occasionally remark somewhat playfully (but only somewhat) to my congregation that they are saddled with quite possibly the least “Mennonite” pastor in our denomination. They usually laugh politely and hope I’ll move on. Why do I say this, you may be wondering? Well, let me count the ways. Read more
I saw a screenshot in the aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt on Sunday. Some academic somewhere saying something to the effect of, “So close!” The gleeful comments obligingly took their place below. Should have had better aim! Dammit, just an inch the other way. What a glorious day this could have been! Etc., etc. The screenshot was captured as a gotcha moment. Look at all these self-righteous “progressive” elites who claim to have the moral high ground, wallowing around in the mud of glorying in an attempted assassination. It was all so wearyingly predictable. And of course, if it had been Biden’s ear that was grazed, the same sad scenario would have been playing out in different corners of the internet that are emotionally invested in being perpetually aggrieved in other directions. We are, it has seemed to me for a very long time now, grossly and terrifyingly invested in who and how we hate. Read more
A single word cuts through all the noise and bustle and bravado around the circle at the jail. It’s prayer time and the guys aren’t super focused. A few talk about upcoming court dates and girlfriends in rehab and various health concerns over the humming, buzzing banter. I’m loudly repeating the requests, struggling a bit to maintain control of the room. The word is spoken softly by a young man to my immediate right. He’s been a regular ever since he arrived on the remand unit. He has an intense curiosity about him, always leaning forward on his knees, always paying careful attention, always asking questions. He’s often one of the cheerier guys in the room, but he’s not smiling right now. He looks, I don’t know, thoughtful, pensive, a little sad as he speaks the one word that reduces the room to silence.
“Forgiveness.” Read more
I spent yesterday evening with a group of young adults discussing, among other things, what it actually means to love our neighbours. Do any of us go as far as Jesus wants us to? Or even come close? Do we love enough or as well or as consistently as we ought to? Do we serve or give or help or deny ourselves in meaningful ways? Or do we just become increasingly skilled at making excuses for why we don’t do more? At one point, I think I said something predictably uninspiring, something that seemed to reek of middle-aged resignation and cynicism. Well, give all that a decade. Sounds like a recipe for burnout to me. Read more
On Sunday morning, a few of us were going through some last-minute details in preparation for the service. Among these, was the addition of a slide to be projected during the sermon. The person who had requested the slide had it ready to go on a USB drive and was going to deliver it to the people responsible for making sure such things happen. I couldn’t help but notice that the USB drive had the logo of a certain political party on it. I made some offhand comment about it. This led to a bit of harmless political banter. “Better not use that drive when so-and-so is running the tech,” one person said with a wink. “Yeah, but other-so-and-so would love it” said someone else. And so and so forth. It was a light moment of brevity before worship, perhaps even an unwitting acknowledgement that even though we don’t all see things the same way politically, we can still come together in worship. Read more
This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Alleluia!
A poem by Denise Levertov for Easter Sunday morning. This is called, “On Belief in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus.” Read more
I had never heard of Threads before I opened my computer this morning and read an article about it in The New York Times. Evidently, Threads is (or was designed to be) an un-Twitter, er, I mean an un-X or… Whatever. It was to be a “safe space” from the evils of Elon Musk and the festering cesspit of rancour and ignorance and misinformation and disinformation and tribalistic stupidity that he had let loose in the world. Because obviously Twitter was such a peaceful playground of mutuality and rational benevolence before Musk sent it straight to hell. Read more
What kind of selves do we need to be to live in harmony with others?
I came across this question in a recent interview with Yale theologian Miroslav Volf. The context for the question was the endlessly discussed and analyzed “polarization” that defines our cultural moment. But the question extends far beyond the culture wars or the toxicity of social media or the relentless politicizing of everyday life. It’s the kind of question we should always be asking, I think. And yet so few of us give even a passing thought to the “kinds of selves” we are becoming through the habits and disciplines (or not) that we are daily cultivating. Read more
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry. — Simone Weil
“I wish the church could be more like an AA meeting.” The statement came from a friend and colleague over lunch last week as we were both kind of bracing ourselves for annual meetings in our denomination. It was followed by a sigh. The sentiment is not exactly a new one, but it’s no less important for its familiarity. It’s an expression of longing for the kind of vulnerability, honesty, community, and deep existential need that one often finds in twelve-step programs. And which is sometimes lacking in more institutional settings. Read more
As I’ve mentioned before, over the last six years or so, I have devoted my sermons between Epiphany and Lent to questions of faith asked by members of our congregation. These can range from questions about specific biblical texts, to theological issues, to how faith intersects with this or that social issue. Sometimes I get only a few questions, sometimes I get so many that I have to extend the series. It’s a series that I find both enjoyable and challenging. The preacher always tends to approach the task with his or her own questions buzzing in the background. It’s always fascinating to take what’s on other people’s minds as my starting point. Read more
I’ve written before about how Jesus’ parables sound different at different stages of one’s life. The story of the lost son, for example, is a story that seems to contain almost the whole of human failure and frustration, hope and longing, love, and desire. I have at various points in my life identified with the recklessly destructive younger son, the self-righteous older brother, and the heartsick father. I doubt I’m terribly unique in this. The story sounds different at forty-eight than it did at twenty-two. It’s the kind of story that can keep one company for a lifetime, opening new truths, unlocking new understandings, making sense of some of the terrain covered along the way. Read more
So, Harvard president Claudine Gay has resigned. This has felt inevitable pretty much from the moment she and two of her Ivy League colleagues couldn’t bring themselves to offer an unambiguous response to the question of whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment in the wake of October 7. It felt like even more of a foregone conclusion after evidence of multiple instances of plagiarism in her published work began to surface. Read more
Today marks the last day of the year of our Lord 2023. Usually, this time of year has me scrambling some nostalgic year-end-ish kind of post together. I’ll often check my statistics from the last year, highlight the five most read posts, and write a short blurb about each. I’ll say thanks for reading and hope that all of this might give this little blog a bit of a bump in views as one year ends and another begins. Read more
 | inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Desecrations |
 | Elizabeth on Desecrations |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Stand at the Crossroads |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Desecrations |
 | Jay on Desecrations |
Rumblings 