ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 29, 2024As we take another step in this Holy Week experience, I am drawn to the words immediately before the arrest of Jesus, as he was praying in the garden, and you can feel his anguish. There we read, “Again Jesus went to pray and said, ‘My Father, if there is no other way, and I must suffer, I will still do what you want’” (Matthew
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 28, 2024As we move further into the Holy Week story as told in Matthew’s Gospel, we learn of an unnamed woman who entered the home of Simon the Leper (how would you like to have what sounds like a last name be an illness that you have? I’d be Bruce the Multiple Sclerosis) and opened a jar containing very expensive perfume. She poured it on Jesus’
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 27, 2024There are many passages of scripture that leave me scratching my head, and the words from the opening of Matthew 23 are one example. It reads, [Jesus said,] “The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are experts in the Law of Moses. So obey everything they teach you, but don’t do as they do. After all, they say one thing and do something else.”
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 26, 2024In Matthew’s Gospel, a short time after Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, there are a number of teaching moments. Many of them come from conversations and conflict, including a debate over resurrection (Matthew 22). Of course, it came in a roundabout way, as some of the religious were trying to stir an argument with Jesus. I find it interesting that Jesus, though offering some broad
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS March 25, 2024Prayer for the Week:Holy WeekA journey from incomplete joy to the fullness of joyA journey that ended for many when the parade concluded A journey seeking to bind together the fullness of the human experience A journey immersed in pain betrayal, taunting, false allegationsA journey to the instrument of Rome’s torturous insanityA journey with words of unimaginable mercy and kindness A journey to death, darkness, lostness, an
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 24, 2024In today’s sermon, an idea I originally planned to use but time constraints required that it be left on the floor of my editing room had to do with Roman Citizenship. If someone was not a citizen of Rome, there were ways of gaining citizenship, but it was something that had to be earned. Keeping that in mind, as the Apostle Paul (a Roman citizen
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 23, 2024Today is Palm Sunday Eve, an important day in the life of the church. Not really, but I like to think of it in those terms. In Matthew’s telling of the story, Jesus sends two disciples into Jerusalem to find a donkey and a colt that he will ride. At the time of this request, it says that they were in Bethphage, about a two-hour
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 22, 2024On Sunday, which happens to be Palm Sunday, we will conclude the series on Pressing The Reset Button. As we continue to push the metaphor of the reset, we will focus on the necessity of anyone seeking to live like Jesus needing a reset from one perspective to another. There is one world where the humble are crushed and the last are defined as losers,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 21, 2024Yesterday, my sister Stephanie and I had an email exchange. It became a bit comical as I completely misunderstood the first email she sent, and from that initial misunderstanding, it sort of spiraled into utter chaos. Ok, that might be a bit overstated, but had it been something significant, I believe the outcome could have been unhelpful, even leaving two people or two groups at
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMarch 20, 2024In yesterday’s devotional, I shared an experience from Sunday evening when outside of a grocery store, a woman (I assumed referencing my dark purple dress shirt) smiled and said to me, “You must be a Lent Boy.” I’ll confess to you some internal back and forth on whether to tell the story or even to do so with a slight change of language. In the