On International Women's Day, let's celebrate little known women of the Bible. For centuries, people have abused the Bible in order to oppress and quash the rights of women. They've done their best to diminish and even obscure the powerful roles women played in our scriptures. Who knows how many stories were simply excluded from the canon by the men who curated it? Here are a few stories of women ...
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Maybe this horrific tale that we've tried to turn into a children's nursery theme actually does have something good to tell us about who God is. Maybe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elVp0X3YvSE&t=10
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This is a text version of the story I told at the opening worship this past week's Arts, Recreation and Worship Conference. You can find video at the bottom of the post. The whole story--our story, our faith story--begins and ends with water It all begins with the spirit of almighty God hovering over the water—an inky, black, watery abyss. Water left to its own devices will create chaos and wreak ...
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https://open.spotify.com/episode/4eAitdqpo0GjlsaliGL5Vg?si=ae02d7a935a14a2e Here we get our first glimpse of the disciples gathered together after the resurrection. All in all, not a very pretty picture. Near the end of his life, Jesus had carefully prepared his disciples to be a devoted and confident fellowship of faith. They were to be a community of love whose doors were always open and the welcome mat always out, but here we find them barricaded in a ...
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If you're not familiar with the story of Jacob and Esau, you can listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3BLexsGYvmW2cASToRpzvQ?si=zhy0P92PTwmAazGIVtBd2Q&dl_branch=1 To recap: Jacob has been fighting to be the first-born or at least receive the benefits of the first-born since he and his brother were in the womb. Finding his brother in a weak moment, Jacob trades Esau a bowl of stew for Esau’s birthright. Knowing that this not really kosher, Jacob and mom, Rebekah, concoct a ...
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The story of Hagar is one of the most offensive stories in the Bible. Here Abraham has been promised by God that he will be the Father of a great nation. Promised by God. But since both he and his wife Sara are so old, Abraham decides he’ll hedge his bets and try to reproduce with one of his slaves, Hagar. And yes, such practices were customary in those days, ...
Read Morehttps://open.spotify.com/episode/4GnyCtRBe02WyzcMZgregl?si=N2f6RfklSxi9yqYl_kbLYg @media screen and (min-width:768px){.ugb-f9f5329.ugb-spacer{height:12px}} This is not a fun story. It doesn't make Sarai, Abram or even God come off looking very good. Hagar, the oppressed concubine pregnant with her master's son, is the hero of the story. We've all had bad days, but I think we can agree that Hagar's bad day is one of the worst. And it is on this day that she encounters God...a God who doesn't even ...
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I've loved this story for awhile and was delighted to find that someone made it into a short film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9N8OXkN0Rk The story is a bit of the reverse of the Road to Emmaus story--where the disciples didn't recognize that their fellow traveler was, indeed, Jesus. Perhaps we have to be on the lookout to find a God who is on the loose in the world.
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Was that your first thought this morning? "I'm gonna encounter the living Lord Jesus Christ." Probably not. And yet, we spend an awful lot of our time looking for Jesus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xkaSNQJ_3o We spend a lot of time looking for Jesus, but it's often in very holy, very specific spaces and places. We don't go out into everyday life expecting to see Jesus...and I think that's why we so often miss him. ...
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It's one of the many cool things about the Bible. Even the stories we've heard again and again and again still have new things to say to us. Listen with new ears to the story of the Good Samaritan and to what I learned from it this go-round. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7pLNTGD2UaSbAcEAc5i39O?si=CFVcXP79RbeqCyZgZNubmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dxf0Jpsm6Q
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I know. It's counter intuitive. One shouldn't rush a season of waiting and anticipation, but it's 2020. Everything is different. I think the liturgical police can take a break this year. Advent officially begins on Sunday, but I've already dropped TWO Advent episodes of the Bible Stories for Big Kids podcast. (BTW: You're a big kid.) The first goes with the Narrative Lectionary scripture for the first Sunday of Advent. ...
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This week, we looked at the story of the call of Isaiah. You can listen to it on Bible Stories for Big Kids by clicking the button below or wherever you get your podcasts. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Qy6EHNijJ42nYqbxXYpTq?si=9cGofKATQzG2Sh3LJiaIhA Here are a few of my thoughts. It's not fair to compare ourselves to Isaiah (I mean, I never got an visions of winged creatures or heard the voice of God). But even if we don't ...
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This week's Narrative Lectionary scripture passage is just what we need to hear this week. If you haven't listened to this week's Bible Stories for Big Kids, you can listen wherever you get your podcasts or at the link below. Then checkout my message below. May we all find ways to move forward together as a community and a country. Jonah and American Ninevites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0FZS-NdqPs&t=3s
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This week we're looking at the story of the Golden Calf--or what happens when people get tired of waiting and wandering the desert. None of us like to wait. And most of us do not wait well--which explains a lot about some of the bad behavior we've seen from people during the last six months. We know a little bit about what the children of Israel were feeling. It's ...
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This week the Promises Kept series was all about Abraham's backstory--or the prequel, if you will. Here's a recap of all things Abraham. If you haven't listened to this week's episode of the new podcast, get the story here. Counting Stars Here's the "official" Abraham playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XVV8cBSELvgEAcXnzjc7x?si=uuUbTHFiRU-Abh2NPtAOyg This week's message. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOnExiF0DZ0 I hope you feel you know a little more about Abraham and have found some encouragement in this story of ...
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Remember the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den?It's not really about the lionsWhat landed Daniel in that den was his defiant act of prayerPrayer that was illegalDone right in an open window where everyone could see A subversive act of resistance that testified to allThat his God was greater than the king.That his God was more powerful than any empire.That his God was worth risking the lions for.And it is ...
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I am not very good at quoting scripture chapter and verse, but I know my Bible stories. It might have something to do with being an only child in an era before cell phones and the internet and having a mom who made sure I had a TON of Bible story books. As the country begins to open up, and we're all having to discern how to move back ...
Read Morehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV8wFANocHY All of you probably know at least something about Zacchaeus. You may be familiar with the song above. If you are of a certain age and grew up in church, you may be able to picture your Sunday school teacher placing the flannel figure of a little man up in a flannel tree on a flannel board. Maybe you really don’t know much about Zacchaeus, but somewhere, sometime, you heard ...
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God was lonely. That’s the problem with being THE God. It’s not like being one of the gods of Mount Olympus where you could always find another god or goddess to wrestle for power or to go grab a drink with. THE God is all alone. Even though THE God dwells in community as the Holy Trinity, each of the members is really still God…but not God…but still God. Mystery ...
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Beyond his Holy Week famous and oft-quoted line (slightly paraphrased), "I wash my hands of the whole thing," how much do you really know about Pilate? Here are five things you may not know about the man who sent Jesus to his death. One: Pilate's wife, Procula, is a canonized Saint in the Orthodox Church. The basis of this canonization is mainly found in Matthew 27: 19, in which she shared ...
Read MoreWe like quick fixes. It kind of seems like the woman in our story this morning got one. She just touched Jesus’s cloak and boom, she was healed. But if you were listening closely to the story, you know that she had been suffering for 12 years. Twelve years! She had seen doctor after doctor. Her condition separated her from family and friends because it caused her to be declared ...
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