August 24, 2020 Dear Friends in Christ, In the coming months our worship will follow the story of the people of Israel in the book of Exodus. Although they came to Egypt for refuge from a famine, Israel was enslaved, far from home, unable to realize the promise that God had given them a [...]
One of the first things the children of the church notice in the sanctuary is the liturgical color. When the season changes, when stoles and paraments move from purple to white or white to red or green to purple, they usually point that out before I can even get to it in the children’s sermon [...]
The words can leave you flat on your face. This week finds Peter and Paul struggling with the radical change that the call of God has wrought for each of them. (Paul, you’ll remember, was literally flat on his face on the Damascus road.) The disciples are regularly flattened by the challenge Jesus offers. And, [...]
The stories in the week to come move like a clock, several hands telling the time together. They may point in different directions, but they amount to the same time. The book of Judges begins, depicting an unsettled Israel. The people have received God’s promise and settled in a new land, but they pick up [...]
When I started writing daily devotionals back in March I thought that they might continue through Holy Week. Surely by then, I thought, we would have figured out how to remain connected as a church—or even that we might be able to worship together again. The stories seemed to reflect the time so well. Why [...]
