Matthew 5:1-13

There is no blessing for those who place order above wholeness, or the law above what is truly right. But there is a blessedness beyond reason to those who place wholeness and righteousness above human whims.

John 1:1-14

We will only be able to worship this tiny, fragile baby Jesus, when we dwell in his presence with those who are vulnerable.

Luke 2:1-20

Christ is brave enough, strong enough, powerful enough to stand the smell of this world, the ugly reality we know, the darkness all around us, and invite it into his eternal light.

Luke 1:26-38

Joy makes us live in new ways, with new habits, and new families, and new responsibilities, because we are called to herald the complicated, yet saving birth of Jesus Christ. We are called to herald new life—each and every time—by choosing joy.

Luke 1:5-25

The pattern of joy is not to burst out with as many words as we can, or to start telling the world about how good things are, or to launch into a flurry of do-goodery. The pattern of joy—this choice of joy—begins with quiet contemplation.

Romans 13:8-14; 14:1-4, 7-10

We join the Church today in remembering our mortality and that we die in the same manner that we were born: held in love, shepherded by the Lord of all, and part of a communion of saints that is far bigger and more beautiful than we can ever grasp.

Luke 18:1-8

We come to realize that just as we petition God as that widow, so too does the Spirit petition us, asking our unjust hearts to joyfully acquiesce to hope.

Matthew 25:31-46

One of the most unexpected divides in this story is between those who were trying to discern which people were “deserving” of grace and those who were extravagantly indiscriminate in their care for others.

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Our lives are always making a confession of what is valuable to us. Will our lives make a good confession—that virtuous, loving, faithful, patient, gentle confession? Or will we miscalibrate our sense of what is valuable?

LUKE 16:1-13

[Today's] parable stands out from the others, because it shows us that money can also be used to sculpt new relationships, mend the breaches of our community, and give unexpected freedom to those who are burdened.

DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20

In the exodus from Egypt, in wandering in the wilderness, in observing the sabbath, in building the homes of God, and in prophesying against injustice, we see that choosing life places us on a path that is anything but straightforward; and we see that choosing life requires choosing it again and again.

Deuteronomy 24:17-18 and Jeremiah 2:4-13

The Hebrew people are commanded to communally remember the traumas of their ancestors, not for the sake of white-knuckled self-determination, but for the sake of their communal wholeness.

Galatians 6:1-16

Paul writes to the church of Galatia about the obsession to be right and its close bedfellow: the obsession to gain power over others. But Christ’s crucifixion gives us a very different set of rules and affections, ones which will surely lead us to plant seeds for tomorrow.

Luke 9:51-62

Let the dead bury the dead, and let’s start making room for the living. Everything depends on plowing a furrow ahead, getting ready for the Spirit’s seeds of hope, and anticipating a harvest that our children and grandchildren will reap.

ASCENSION OF THE LORD ∙ Acts 1:1-11

These disciples are rubbernecked to heaven — to a spiritual event of the past, and a ministry of the past, and their ways of the past. In trying to figure it out, they forgot about Jesus’ words: “To Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

The church has never, ever, ever been called to tune out. It has been called to be tuned-in, with a heart and set of eyeglasses that give it a different lens: a bifocal faith.

Acts 11:1-18

Peter saw everything he was taught to avoid, and everything he was taught to reject, coming down in a sheet. He was being called by God to support and love Samaritans and eunuchs and Romans and foreigner gentiles. He was being asked to transgress the boundaries he formed and the lines in the sand he drew.

EASTER SUNDAY ∙ John 20:1-18

There is a constellation of hope, and love, and joy in this place. It won’t make us unshakably certain, or unmovable strong. But it will make us alive — united in Christ, starstruck by the God of resurrections.

Luke 6:27-36

In an economy that is predisposed to transactionalism, Jesus invites us to commit acts of unexpected generosity, and to find freedom in letting go of our wealth. Jesus is earnestly, fervently inviting us to do what is unintuitive to the powers of the earth: to love, to pray, to bless, to give.

1 Corinthians 12:12-33a

Like our own physical bodies, we don’t get to choose when our muscles work, or our vision remains, or our mental health reaches equilibrium. We don’t get to choose if we’re weak or not, and despite that inconvenience, it is a gift, because that is where the presence and hope of Christ enters into our lives.