The human eye has not evolved to see confidently in darkness. Unlike others of God’s creatures, we are not a nocturnal species. Absent the light, our steps are unsteady, the grope of our hands tentative and erratic. In the familiarity of our own home, we worry about a stubbed toe. In stranger settings, we fear greater dangers. There is little wonder, then, that biblical literature uses darkness as a metaphor for things gone wrong, for being listless and lost. And light, in co

When has the wine given out for you? When has your life been nothing but dregs and sediment? The faintest whiff of what was, left behind on a dried-up cork?   Was it when the wine of your faith gave out? Or the wine of your career? Or the wine of your health? Or of a relationship? Or of your identity? How about the wine of your hopes, or happiness, or desires? When has the wine given out for you?   Many would say that the wine of good government in our nation has given out. D

What did Jesus know, and when did he know it? A similar question was asked in 1973 of the incumbent United States President by a senator of his own party – ah, those were simpler times. Thirty years later, recalling this phrasing, I asked my question during a seminary theology class. What did Jesus know, and when did he know it?  How does the divine omniscience of the Second Person of the Trinity square with the full humanity of Jesus of Nazareth? Surely Jesus had to be toile

What do you hope for, wish for, deeply desire from this new year? The turn of the calendar page and the annual plus-one of that descriptive digit brings with it the notion of a fresh start, a beginning-again.   For Isaiah’s people – Third Isaiah as Old Testament scholars call him – the desired fresh start and hoped-for new beginning was pinned on the return home of the exiled Hebrew people from captivity in far-off Babylon. Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory

Your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety. Jesus was found by his anxious and perplexed parents in temple in Jerusalem, three days after the Passover. Saint Luke tips his hand with this important bit of story-telling in today’s gospel. Some years later, Jesus would return to the temple, and be offered as the  Passover Lamb, sacrificed for us on crucifixion’s altar, only to rise on the third day and to present himself to his anxious and perplexed disciples

It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known (John 1:18). How does one make known the unknowable? We use metaphor, simile, and symbol. This is like that, stands for that, is close to describing that. The better artists and writers help us in this way to make concrete that which is abstract, tangible that which is incorporeal, permanent that which is ephemeral.   God is the best, the superlative artist and writer, the creator who used the

I eavesdrop. I spend much of my time in public spaces, so I really can’t help but overhear and listen in on conversations.   “What are you doing for Christmas?” people say lately. I hear a long list of responses: leaving the city to see family, and anticipating travel headaches; staying home to be with family, and anticipating hosting headaches; going out to dinner; cooking dinner at home; waiting tables; tending bar; doing as little as possible; doing absolutely nothing; Man

Most every week, in my priest’s kit, I take a long walk at night. I travel through the Upper and Lower Haight, the Tenderloin, South of Market; and occasionally I wander into Union Square, Chinatown, and North Beach. It gets dark early in these last days, which makes places with the lights on really stand out. I see into well-appointed homes, decorated for Christmas. Pubs and restaurants filled with festive-sweatered holiday revelers mixing with the regulars. Shops hopeful fo

Shame and fear are powerful emotions. Have you ever felt them? Me, too.   The big dictionary in my study defines shame as a “painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.” Fear is defined as a “feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger” [Am. Her., 4 th  Ed].   Shame and fear are powerful motivators. Shame can make us deny and deflect, but it also can make us apologize and change. Fear can make

“Be patient, beloved. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”   † Quoting Isaiah elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus promised release to captives, in addition to good news for the poor and relief from a litany of ailments. Today, Jesus added raising the dead to his performance self-review. But did you notice that Jesus didn’t offer his cousin John that get-out-of-jail-free card. I wonder what John thought about that bit of not-so-good news brought back by his

There is a joyful sort of universalism in today’s readings; a sign of how much God loves us. Jesse’s root – the coming Christ – will be the signal to peoples of the nations who seek him. The fulfillment of the first coming of Christ will bring the Gentiles into the fold. And even the stones in the riverbed of the Jordan will be born as beloved children, if God desires it. This was gospel then; this is good news now.   But there’s a catch, or an opportunity, if you prefer. Rep

To be clear, the Second Coming of Christ, as it is described in the scriptures and depicted in hymnody and bronze and oils, will be impossible to miss. I am not one to second-guess the reality behind the prediction of this terminal spectacle: Christ the Lord, robed in dreadful majesty, descending from the clouds, accompanied by countless hosts of saints and angels. You may think me odd, but I pray for this to happen in my lifetime. I hope I am around to see it.   My hope has

Every once in awhile I meet someone who says he is Jesus. I try to balance my skepticism of their claim with the gospel and baptismal injunction to seek and serve Jesus in troubled people such as these. And who knows: in that moment, that person could well be the Christ.   The other day, I met someone who said he was a royal. I was in my priestly garb, walking near Sixth and Mission, when a man stopped me. When I said I was an Episcopalian, he recalled that we are an offshoot

When I was a hospice chaplain I often worked with couples. Some were facing the end of a long, happy marriage as one spouse was soon to die. Among my charges were devout Christians who knew their Bible. They wondered about today’s gospel passage, in which Jesus says there is no marriage in heaven. “Does this mean our marriage will be over?” they said. “Will we even recognize each other? I’m already starting to miss him, to miss her!”   These questions, and the anxiety, grief,

“To be a saint means to be myself,” wrote the twentieth-century monk Thomas Merton. He didn’t always think so. Years before, while wondering what to do with his life, a fellow monk astonished this doubting-Thomas by saying that if he really wanted a vocation, he should aspire to sainthood.   It’s not such an astonishing idea, sainthood. Some eighteen centuries before Merton, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon wrote that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” And before Irenaeus

In “The Thin Man” movies from the 1930s and 1940s, Nick Charles is a reluctant private detective who takes on cases in his retirement from the police department. His wife Nora comes from money, and their lifestyle shows it. Often they will cross paths with the ex-cons and ne’er-do-wells Nick had put away years ago, and Nora will say, with a subtle side-eye and smirk, “Oh, Nicky – you have the most interesting friends!”   Kate will repeat this line to me sometimes after we cro

“And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  (Lk. 18:8).   Well … will he or won’t he? And what is faith, anyway?   Faith is the expression of a system of belief. The Nicene Creed we’ll soon recite is an affirmation of faith in the core tenets of Christianity. The catechism in the back of the prayer book that explains these tenets is properly known as “An Outline of the Faith.” And perhaps you’ve been asked, “What faith are you?” – which is to say “what

Two Sundays ago, a few miles down the road from the last congregation in Michigan that I served, a man who hated Mormons – he had called them the Antichrist – rammed his vehicle into one of their churches, setting the building ablaze, and burning it to the ground. He killed four people in the attack – two by gunshot and two by the fire – and injured eight others. He was killed on the scene by the police.   A Mormon from another church began a Go-Fund-Me campaign that quickly

What if Franciscans ran the world?   It’s a trick question! – Franciscans have no desire to run the world. The Trappist monk Thomas...

Did an angel whisper in your ear And hold you close and take away your fear In those long last moments?   (L. Williams 1998)   “The word...