Sometimes good news is too good to believe. At least it seems that way when Jesus strolls through John’s Gospel (John 5, healing one ill for thirty-eight years; John 11, the...

This story wrestles with a culture that believed disease and misfortune were God’s punishment. Someone did wrong; someone sinned. A person or even parents could cause lasting illness—so the disciples believed,...

In the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul stresses that Christ’s death and resurrection have opened the way for Gentiles to draw near to God because the “dividing wall” (see Ephesians...

Many memorial services or services of death and resurrection employ this psalm to bring comfort and hope to the grieving. The psalm acknowledges the presence of grief, of going through dark...

Shepherds spend lots of time outside, and this familiar and popular psalm attributed to David invites us to the healing landscape of green meadows, flowing rivers, and tree-shaded paths. Such places...

You can’t judge a book by its cover.” This wise and familiar expression is true not only of books but also of people, according to the words God whispers to the...

Fear can hold us back. We sometimes think our only response to fear is to fight or take flight, but I think we can also remain immobilized, frozen and stuck, incapable...

My reading of the Gospel accounts of Jesus and the disciples sometimes surprises me that the disciples were surprised. After all, I think, they were with Jesus. The scripture lesson today...

One reading of this well-known story would claim that it defies convention. A man, a Jew, in open conversation with a woman who is a Samaritan sets up an unheard-of scene....

When people have experienced a windfall (not always in the form of money), we may describe their experience as a real rags-to-riches story. It usually depicts a one-hundredeighty- degree shift in...