Summary: Numerous biblical stories describe apparent “outsiders” who have clear vision and insight. Because of those people, the supposed “insiders” gain a new, better, or enlarged perspective on the values and virtues they hold dear. Such stories can also remind a nation that an insular approach to the wider world and cultures is liable to degrade our most cherished values.
Read the full document, which is part of the American Values Religious Voices letter-writing project, here.
Summary: Images of exile and displacement are key aspects of the New Testament’s ways of describing Christian faith. There is a tragic irony at work, then, when Christians lend their support to policies that discredit and reject refugees.
Read the full post, which is part of a collection of reflections by a variety of authors involved in the ON Scripture–The Bible project, here.
Summary: When Jesus tells a parable about a widow who engages in a tireless campaign to get the justice she deserves, he offers an illustration of Christian faith. In the parable, the woman continually beseeches an unjust judge who finally grants her requests because he grows tired of her endless appeals. The parable associates Christian faith with an unflagging commitment to see justice become a reality. Christian faith complains about injustice and advocates for those who need justice. Faith does so because it takes God’s promises seriously, believing that God is indeed a God of justice. This depiction of faithful advocacy is especially important to consider during election season. Christians can advocate for candidates who will create just laws and policies, but Christians also equip themselves to persist in advocacy after elections are complete.
Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on Day1 and Patheos.
Summary: When Jesus heals a woman’s debilitating and oppressive spinal condition on the sabbath, his action draws a rebuke. His sharp retort to his critics implies that his action was totally appropriate, since honoring the sabbath entails reiterating God’s commitment to freedom from oppression. The theological logic that drives this passage and justifies Jesus’ urgent concern for the anonymous woman’s well-being resonates with what Martin Luther King Jr. argues in his famous book Why We Can’t Wait. Well-meaning religious people seem to have a habit of impeding God’s commitment to justice and liberation. Our problem goes beyond ignorance or a lack of compassion. Sometimes our theology, security, and idealism are to blame. We need to rediscover the priorities to which God is committed, such as delivering people from suffering.
Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on Day1 and Patheos.
Summary: The book of Acts tells a story about two traveling evangelists, Paul and Silas, as they encounter severe resistance in Philippi, a Roman colony. After the pair are dubiously accused, savagely beaten, and shamefully incarcerated, an earthquake miraculously frees them from their chains and cells. What might look like a story of supernaturally aided escape is really a story about vindication, a means of God exposing the futility of Roman attempts to obstruct the preaching of the gospel. The whole scene has a burlesque quality to it, for its aim is to expose the powerlessness and peevishness of an imperial culture that sets itself up to resist God’s presence, with violence if necessary. The passage speaks about more than ancient Roman realities, however, for its portrait of imperial abuses looks uncomfortably similar to the ways in which modern societies protect their interests and prerogatives. In the end, the story suggests that God offers a different reality, one beyond our ways of suppressing outsiders and clinging desperately onto our attempts at self-preservation.
Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on The Huffington Post, Day1, and Patheos.
Summary: According to the book of Acts, when the temple-based authorities in Jerusalem command Peter and his associates to stop preaching and teaching about Jesus in public, the apostles refuse. With a pithy reply, “We must obey God rather than any human authority,” they declare their intention to honor their spiritual convictions no matter what consequences may result. The apostles’ heroic and bold resolve stands in a long tradition in which people have pondered when it is right to insist on honoring one’s conscience in the face of political and legal pressure to do otherwise. Given the contours of the current cultural discourse in America, when many are quick to demand laws and concessions that respect their “religious liberty,” this episode from Acts and the travails of other Christians who have paid a price for resisting tyranny remind us how we should conceive of “religious liberty” in the first place. Such liberty in a civil society should not become a license to do whatever one wants or a legal basis to deny rights and hospitality to others. Rather, it is a free determination to do what’s necessary to promote our neighbors’ well-being, even if those actions invite uncomfortable repercussions.
Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on Day1 and Patheos.
Summary: Lent provides opportunities to reflect on our experience of encountering God and God’s salvation in embodied ways — in our bodies’ abilities to perceive familiar realities and to interpret new ones. I prepared a five-part series that invites us to think about Jesus’ ability to make God known in tangible, sensory ways. The series explores selected biblical passages that permit us to reflect on who we are and how we bear witness to the gospel — not so Lent causes us to denigrate this life, but so we learn to encounter God among us and to know Christ through our bodies.
I wrote this series to spark the creativity of those who are preparing to preach or teach during Lent, although individuals might also use it for devotional purposes. Read it at Working Preacher.
Summary: Mary, the mother of Jesus, responds to what she has been told about her son with a bold declaration about God’s habit of overturning the status quo. Mary speaks about God as one who will not let powerless and discarded people remain trapped in those conditions. Her words offer more than wishful hope or religious platitudes; they restlessly and impatiently urge God to spring into action. Listening to Mary respond to her pregnancy has particular poignancy for Christians during Advent: she rouses us into action and expectation. This passage also can help citizens of certain nations think about the long-running war our countries continue to wage, leading us to consider its costs and burdens and to join God in God’s commitment to fostering a different kind of existence.
Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on Day1 and Patheos.
Summary: The story of Ananias and Sapphire, about two people who attempt to defraud the church in Jerusalem, raises a number of questions. It’s an extremely disturbing and problematic story, because their punishment (death) exceeds the severity of their misdeed. Why does Acts treat their fib as such a big deal? One reason is because their deceit reveals more than greed or financial duplicity; it shows a willful disdain for the community’s generosity and mutuality, a disdain able to wreck the fragile, new church. In the end, this isn’t a story about money and lies as much as a story about God’s intimate relationship with the church.
Read the full article on The Huffington Post.
(Portions of this article are adapted from a chapter in my book Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts.)
Psalm 126: Dreams of Restoration, in Every Sense
Summary: Psalm 126 originally spoke of the cultural and geographical restoration experienced (or expected) by those who had returned home from a prolonged exile. It delights the senses with its images of refreshment and sustenance. It reminds us that dreaming can offer a way into knowing who we are, why we suffer, and what we want for our future. The short and colorful psalm gives us language to use when imagining the kinds of restoration we long for as we move forward in the confidence that God is committed to our well-being and in the hope that the future must be greater and more just than the past.
I wrote this article for PsalmSeason, a project led by Hebrew College’s Miller Center for Interreligious Learning and Leadership and Interfaith Youth Core. PsalmSeason is an 18-week exploration of 18 Psalms conducted by a diverse and multifaith group of religious leaders, cultural critics, musicians, poets, artists, and activists. Read the full article at PsalmSeason.
Bible commentary: general audience
covid-19 dreams exile future harvest psalms restoration water