The following “Daily Devotionals” are provided through the
United Church of Christ Website.
To read the full devotional, please click the Title of the devotional and you will be directed to the UCC website. We only keep the current month listed on this page.
Alt Jesus
My alt-Jesus is a mirror image of myself. You might have an alt-Jesus as well, one who affirms your likes and rains holy judgment upon your dislikes.
Charming Disarmament
Can you imagine leading the kind of life where you have to get good at charmingly disarming bigots in order to try to save your daughter’s life?
Why I Don’t Wear a WWJD Bracelet
Here’s a news flash: you’re not Jesus. You run out of wine at a wedding? What would Jesus do? He’d turn water into wine. Go ahead.
Sleepless Nights
Lamenting to God over the state of the world is a part of faith. These are hard days we are living in. You don’t need to put on a brave face. Not with God, anyway.
Hateful Christians and Certain Love
God, let me be uncertain about my own righteousness, and certain of your unconditional love for both me and my enemies.
Thanks for Forgetting
We know that sin is not determined by age. I’ve found that sin is the immaturity of being closed to any value that does not serve self-aggrandizement.
Reliable Sources
Jesus asked the religious leaders whether a particular authority came from heaven or from humanity. It’s the first question to ask when we aren’t sure what’s right.
You Are So Special, You Know
Beautiful Grandmother God, thank you for the messengers you send our way again and again and again, to remind us of how special you have made us.
Litany of Purpose
What is focus? It is the purity of heart that wills one thing. The widow had a lot of that. Focus is behavior that has mission centrality and mission consistency.
Just Love
God of love, judgment, bodies, and will: may your word ever be light upon our paths so that we may follow you closely. Amen.
That Sinking Feeling
Suppose Peter was not called out of the boat only to walk on water. Suppose he was called out of the boat to sink, to know his vulnerability?
Longing for Cucumbers
The ancient Israelites’ longing for cucumbers was really the longing for home, whether in Egypt or in a new place. I think it’s our longing too, in our strange and fearsome time.
The Gasp
To think that – no matter what I’ve done or haven’t, whether I’m ready or unwilling – at the last my eyes will widen in delight, it relieves me unto tears.
Remember Me
I know the God of my grandmother’s prayers is the God of my tearful prayers, and the God who promised to be with Abraham is the same God who continues to be with me.
If This Is Goodbye
I don’t talk much about The End. But I wonder if I should. Who would I be today – to my coworkers, to my family, to myself – if I knew the song were coming to a close?
Kiss by Kiss
Scripture says that when our salvation is accomplished and creation is healed, it will be like a reunion of beloveds, like siblings sharing a kiss.
Dear God: Do Better
Maybe pacing and moaning are the best prayers your uncomforted spirit can offer right now. So offer them. Without embarrassment. Without reserve.
Would Paul Wear a Mask?
What I’m free to do and what I ought to do aren’t always the same. Being Christian means willingly giving up some freedoms in order to better care for my neighbor.
Real Relationships Renegotiate
It’s terrible to feel boxed in to a previous version of yourself. The heart of the gospel is this: everyone gets to grow and change.
Suffering and Dancing
We each get to decide for ourselves if our personal suffering has had a holy purpose. Joseph was ill-used by his brothers, and yet so much good came of it.
Trying to Grow Tomatoes
How can you tell if there is a good spirit afoot? You can tell by the fruits it yields. How can you tell a bad spirit is afoot? You can tell by the poison in the room.
Figuring Out the Plumbing
In the words of William Sloane Coffin: ‘The prophet’s job is to proclaim, “Let justice roll down like waters…” Our job is to figure out the plumbing.”
The Long Road of Avoidance
Freedom isn’t really free. It requires constant vigilance and courage. Even after the fall of Goliath we must remain prepared, because the giants of adversity keep coming.
Goings-on and Come-uppances
I give thanks for the way God comes through no matter what in the world is happening, keeping hold of me day and night, my help in all things and all times.
New Songs
All by myself, I have a habit of singing the same songs. Listening to the same Spotify playlist. Rehearsing the same worldview. Repeating the same prayers.
The Cave
If a lament is not your song today, how can you call into the ‘cave’ where someone is struggling? If you are in church leadership, how can you help to make room for lament?
Pre-Pardoning Compromise
God takes whatever God can get. That’s good news for us who demand moral purity and perfection in ourselves and others, yet always end up compromising.
A Different World
As parents, we are interested in preparing our daughter for the world as God would have it. A world in which love is shared with friends and strangers and even enemies.
Protecting My Energy
It should not be incumbent upon any Black person to spend their time proving to obstinate people that racism kills.
Dogged
Countless women, named and unnamed like the Syrophoenician woman, have doggedly persisted – would not go away, would not give way, would not be dismissed.
Who is This Even For?
While I’d never claim out loud to be free of wickedness, I sure have found myself acting that way from time to time. Looking like butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth.
Let God’s People Go
When met with disbelief, let’s shift our focus – away from dwindling attendance to the political and economic systems that write off entire categories of God’s children.
Mostly Dead
We’re a full six months into this pandemic, and here is the final exam for this semester: Where are you feeling almost dead? Where are you coming alive for the first time in years?
Ready for a Miracle
I wonder how we might live differently if we turned aside more often to notice miracles, if we called out miracles as steadfastly as we call out sin and injustice.
How Can I Keep from Singing?
The psalms tell me that I have to sing, but they never say anything about singing well. As long as this strange season of remote worship lasts, my choir of frogs will be in full effect.
Naming Evil
Refusing to name evil does not and will not make it go away. When we do not name evil, we give it unleashed power to prevail.
Concerns and Condolences
Tributes are wonderful ways to express gratitude for those who’ve made great sacrifices to make America a more perfect union of democracy. But they are not the best ways.
An Heirloom of Our Faith
Imagine the woman giving her alabaster jar one last polish before she takes a deep breath, moves toward Jesus, and breaks things open.
Redesigning Beauty
We might embroider God’s intended beauty on our hearts, like a tattoo, and wear the promises proudly so we could actually recreate.
Play to Pray
How do we enact play in our busy, overscheduled lives? You already know the answer: We do less. We allow more unstructured time. We make messes, art carts, and robot noises.
Keep the Faith and Struggle On
Struggle with God and watch yourself be transformed; your questions are valid and blessed. Your challenges are never beyond God’s reach.
Driving Out Hate
We should be united in calling one another away from evil, united in renouncing leaders who trade in the unacceptable. There are not two sides to that.
Revive Us Again
In the midst of a pandemic and the troubles of this time, I could use some reviving. Perhaps you could, too.
The Fragility of Mappability
One of the more awkward things about our faith is how firmly tied it is to the concrete world. This particularity makes religion potentially fragile.
Blessed Are the Broken
Our wounds and our scars don’t make us too broken for anything – for love, for healing, or for closure.
Everything is Canceled
Out of the depths I cry to you, God;
God, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
If you, God, kept a record of sins,
who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
I wait for God, my whole being waits,
and in God’s word I put my hope.
– Psalm 130:1-5 (NIV, adapted)
Thanks to the Me Too movement and the movement for Black Lives, it’s common now to say that people or organizations that do terrible things are canceled. Louis C.K. Garrison Keillor. Hobby Lobby. Canceled.
It’s also common to hear people (especially people like me) bemoaning “cancel culture.” Denying the allegations against their favorite celebrities. Sticking up for racism in the guise of free speech. Defending their decision to keep listening to the music, watching the show, ordering from the company anyway.
I’m guilty of all of these. I’m guilty, with the authors of innumerable op-eds, blogposts, and think pieces, of wringing my hands and asking, “Has cancel culture gone too far?”
But Psalm 130 reminds me: it cannot go far enough.
“If you, God, kept record of sins, God, who could stand?”
Psalm 130 reminds me that I too am canceled.
For my participation in and benefit from systems of injustice and oppression. For my participation in and benefit from the degradation of creation. For even the angry, impatient way I parented a stubborn child this weekend.
Canceled.
Psalm 130 reminds me that rather than denying and defending, I am called to confront and repent. To seek forgiveness and then to wait with my whole being on the merciful one.
Prayer
Jesus Christ, child of God, have mercy on me.
The Grace of Being Wrong
Sometimes the longest and most difficult journey is not from place to place, but from assumption to experience, from disdain to respect, from judgment to love.
We’re Everywhere Now
In my lifetime, we have gone from furtively hiding to joyfully journeying to the holy mountain. Just as the prophet promised.
Fractured
Your church can help heal divisions by addressing your community’s pain. Your church’s works of justice and mercy have never been more important.
Fear
Even in this wild adventure, we are reminded of God’s peace that does not depend on outcome, or circumstances, or conditions. It lives within us.
Head Blessings
The psalmist said that it is good and pleasant when we dwell together in unity. But not all things that are pleasant are good – and not all things that are good are pleasant.
Elementary
How do we know when to quit, dust off our feet and move on? Or to plant our dusty feet on the earth, and start singing ‘We shall not be moved’?
Killers Like Me
My job is to tap into the source for the sake of that which is depending on me. God’s care was never meant to inspire carelessness in us.
Let’s Talk about Giving
Where would we be today if God had only loved us without giving us a gift that visibly and tangibly expressed that love?
Dreams
Today, or last week, or right this minute, someone – some dreamer – is casting a vision that may trouble you or trouble me because it threatens some value we hold.
Change Happens
Change happens. But here’s what hasn’t changed: We’re still just trying to connect with each other and share God’s love.
Social Distance Violations of the Bible
These days, standing within five feet of anyone feels so intimate. Seeing someone’s smile unmasked? Enough to start your blood pumping. So dangerous.
Going Places
Going places doesn’t necessarily make a life richer, not if all you ever do is take the well-worn route up the ladder of success or down the road of self-preoccupation.
In Hiding
Maybe the largest offense is not disobedience but lack of trust. What if, rather than pointing the finger or hiding, Adam, Eve, Peter, any of us, bravely asked for forgiveness?
Too Busy for an Angel
As I fight to end systemic oppression, I have to remind myself to slow down and listen to the stories of individuals who are impacted by that oppression.
Cut to the Heart
One opening is often all it takes for the Spirit to invade. Sometimes it hurts. In every case, it aims to heal.
Buoyancy
At least once a week, another friend tells me they’re swearing off social media. One can’t take all the negativity. Another says she is drowning. I daresay Jesus understands.
The Power of Touch
Until there is a vaccine, let’s find other ways to touch one another – with all the love and care of the God who reaches out to us in enfleshed presence.
Knowing Good and Evil
Perhaps we whites are finally daring to take a bite of that forbidden fruit to awaken to a new consciousness. It’s bitter but it won’t kill us – the serpent was right about that.
Scammers vs. Holy Spirit
This devotional really is from me. No, really, it is! Honestly, I can prove it. I’ll just go get my credit card and in the meantime, my social security number is…
Small but Spicy
I view churches like mustard seeds – looking to all the world like something too small to matter but with room enough for so many in their shade.
At a Distance
The wisdom of distance doesn’t erase people’s desire for nearness. And touch. And comfort. A small bit of flame to keep warm. A hand to hold.
Keep the Child Alive
In all our clashing, we must be mindful to know what we might forfeit with wanton hostility. Winning our claims at the cost of losing democracy is a loss for everyone.
In the Nest
Could a mustard seed actually grow into a tree? Of all Jesus’ parables, this one does not seem so hard. The tree has room for all the birds in the nest.
Artistic Redesign
We whites can redesign our invisible backpacks: take out the passports for vacations away from justice, remove the opportunity hoarding and the guilt that holds us back from courage.
How Can We Sing?
When will those of us who are white stop demanding tunes of acquiescence from those who experience exile and injustice?
Test Everything
I am encouraged by my daughter’s instinct to test everything she reads, hears, and experiences, because it seems to be leading her to find deeper meaning.
Protest and Praise
Psalm 42 encourages praising God even when enemies taunt, making praise a form of protest and protest a form of praise.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
I wonder what would happen if we believed we are fearfully and wonderfully made. That despite what the world says about us or what we believe about ourselves, our creation is wonderful.
In/Correct Protest
When the blood is flowing in the streets, when the grapes of wrath have filled and split open like so many mothers’ broken hearts, what then is the approved protocol?
Dwell with Me
It’s time we stop demanding God show up in every situation and start asking if God would want us in that situation in the first place.
No Turning Back
Liberation is work. Clearing the path to something new without the machinery of empire. Creating friction by refusing to do what is expected. Wouldn’t it just be easier…?
Living by the Word
Ever since faith graced us, it’s been our mission to look a bit ridiculous. To don hope’s inappropriate attire in a world hunkered down in stubborn frost.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Wisdom isn’t in the end point, the one thing that will instantly make life easier or powerfuller or more fun. Wisdom is the beginning.
Both Sides?
Christ teaches us that those whose hearts are calloused have missed the mark. Those whose hearts are tender have a better chance of finding Jesus.
Exercise Your God-Given Maturity
Maybe the way to maturity is through immaturity. Maybe both conditions are gifts from God, who thought the journey would be good for us.
The Bodies and the Body
We are suddenly and critically aware that our body is deeply connected to, and responsible for, the One Great Body.
Ultimate
Bowing towards each other is possible when we have a third power, a third way, a deeper understanding of what we are doing here on earth in the first place.
Nobody Likes a Grumpy Giver
Gifts aren’t given to decisions; they are given to the place you have decided God is at work. If your gift makes you grumpy – are you in the right place?
Disrupted
The God who leads us beside still waters is also the God of our most disturbing provocations.
The Place Where You Are Standing
The story doesn’t start at the burning bush. It starts with a God-given impulse to go farther than we might tend to go, to open ourselves up to go where God might be.
Sacred Rage
Grief is one thing, people say; vengeance is another. I don’t understand the impulse of vengeance. But I can listen and try to learn. Not skip over it. Not judge it.
Still, Still, Still
Maybe you’ve been feeling tired. Heart low. Eyes downcast. Overwhelmed. Too discouraged to place much hope in goodness. Hush – be still in the solace of God’s lap.
Blank Check
It’s exemplary to help someone in dire straits, friend or foe. It’s divine to live a deeply obliged life, paying an open-ended debt to hope, for as long as it takes, to heal the world.
Imperfect Trust
Redirect us – from perfecting how to do things right, toward trusting you to guide us in imperfectly doing the right things.
Is My Work Enough?
It’s easy to get caught up in what you don’t have or can’t do, but every bit you can offer has the potential to make a difference beyond your greatest imagination.
A Taxing Question
Tomorrow many will celebrate independence from empire. Let’s also remember that America has since become an empire. How might Jesus call us to respond?
Outlaw
Whatever makes us belong to one another, whatever binds us so tightly that one of us can’t be hurt without all of us crying out, that is the only law that matters.
Rock-Solid Identity
How does your identity – claimed or not – shape your worldview? How does your identity reflect what is important to you? To what, or whom, do you pledge allegiance?
You Can’t Carry Two Watermelons with One Hand
Sometimes we load too much onto our plates. We carry too many things at once. And then one of them drops. Or they all do. Or we drop ourselves, in exhaustion.
Lying Awake and Sitting Still
God, help me listen, love, listen, learn. Let myself be available. Let myself stay awake because there is a lot of Gethsemane out there, and let me listen.
Covid Conversations
My emotions have been all over the place these days. I’m happy one minute, frustrated and short-tempered the next. Fear and hope seem to take turns leading my emotions.
A Little Yeast
I am like my loaves of bread. The things I incorporate, the spiritual influences and personal contacts and media sources, have the power to leaven me, to transform me.
Not Going Back
We don’t need to go back. We need to go forward. Forward to justice, forward to green, and forward to sanity.
What You Are About to Suffer
Good news isn’t so good when it leaves us unequipped to deal with what’s at hand. We are much better served by people who see the depth of our dilemmas and give us candid notice.
For the Sake of Expediency
It’s a strategy of power that has been taught through the generations: pledge allegiance to many gods (wealth, nation, race, religion) to guard what you believe to be yours.
Children in the Wilderness
There are children in our time who, like Ishmael, have lived their entire lives in the wilderness – in desolate places with names like Poverty or Racism, Sickness or Hunger.
Direction and Division
Alas for us, to be alive at a time when direction has become so unmoored from truth that friends no longer trust each other and loved ones rise up against each other.
Grasshoppers and Giants
In the age of Covid-19, we find ourselves facing new, unfamiliar territory. We wonder if we – and our world – will be crushed like bugs underneath a giant pandemic.
Feet
We’re going to be on our feet a lot in the coming days and months. Outside. Marching. Standing in solidarity. Make ready. Resistance is personal. It is intimate and physical.
Flock of Sheep or Pack of Wolves?
Jesus calls us to be part of unlikely flocks – and if we don’t have one, to form one, and to keep growing it.
One Night
If we understood that we only have one night – this one short life – to share faith’s treasures, to increase each other’s joy, we might happily talk straight through night till dawn.
Grieving Together and Apart
If you are in the grips of grief today, remember the example of Abraham: you can grieve your own way. And as you encounter other people, know that they are all in grief.
Flock of Sheep or Pack of Wolves?
Jesus calls us to be part of unlikely flocks – and if we don’t have one, to form one, and to keep growing it.
One Night
If we understood that we only have one night – this one short life – to share faith’s treasures, to increase each other’s joy, we might happily talk straight through night till dawn.
Grieving Together and Apart
If you are in the grips of grief today, remember the example of Abraham: you can grieve your own way. And as you encounter other people, know that they are all in grief.
Deliver Us from Denial
How much longer until we will open ourselves to the pain, mourn the dead, lament the suffering, and open the way to healing and re-ordering?
The Best Revenge
There’s a very thin line – perhaps no line at all – between sporadically wishing harm happens to someone and being the type of person who finds reason to universally justify harm.
Flouters and Frauds
Church has never closed. It just moved into new and dispersed realms. And you know what? In many ways, this incarnation of Church is better than ever.
The Unknown End
Sometimes I truly believe that if I just knew where things were heading, how things would all end up, I’d be fine. I would know about me and how I fit in with ‘it.’
Still Life Goes On
Our actions bear fruit. In all that we do, we hold a basket of fruit into which we and the others around us make an offering. It is the spiritual food off of which we survive.
Endure
We never grasped, in our bruised white innocence and sentimentality, that harmony is easy – justice is not. We should’ve been praying not for harmony, but for endurance.
In the Storm
God is not above the troubles we experience but is with us in them and beyond. Even in the storm, God’s power gives us the strength we need.
Disruption
The world’s raging tumult may feel like a disruption to our lives – and it is – but it is also a constant in our lives, more predictable than we might prefer to acknowledge.
The Same God
Sometimes it’s hard for us to reconcile the God who shatters the earth in bolts of lightning with the God whose eye is on the sparrow.
My Prayer Closet
I’m no stranger to crying out to God when I’m in crisis, but I’m still learning to pray as a way to be in consistent discernment about my life beyond crisis points.
Surely You Know
It’s comforting to pretend to know. It gives the illusion of control. If I know, maybe it won’t hurt so much. I can be prepared. I won’t have to rely on anyone else.
Me, Myself, and I
The Antichrist is not some mythic being. It’s the fist-pumping conviction that nothing is as sacred or heroic or as worth defending as me, myself, and I.
More Than Enough Spirit
There is more than enough Spirit to go around. Because a people empowered can always do more together than the most gifted leader. We can’t do it all on our own.
How Small the Regard of the Lord?
Does God see and care for the fates of smaller lives as well? Field mice? Worms? Fleas? Does God’s regard extend all the way down to … viruses?
No Justice, No Peace
We may try to limit the Prince of Peace to our conceptions of law and order … but God knows that where there is no justice, there will be no peace.
One Bite
With all due respect to Ecclesiastes, which sees every sensory pleasure as a fleeting vanity, denying oneself can also be vanity.
All Together Now
Zoom church, for all its creativity and flexibility and fun, leaves something to be desired. The ineffable energy exchange of embodied worship happens in a hundred different ways.
I Will Not Leave You Orphaned
Thank you, Jesus, for not leaving any of us orphaned, and for the mothering love we can all share with each other.
What Am I to Do with My Anger?
I don’t need to hear the news for the day. I’m still furious about yesterday. I can’t believe this is happening. Anger spurs my resistance, but faith requires meekness, not fury.
Always Sophia
Perhaps like me, you too need an image reminding us that our waiting on God is not in vain – even as the entire world watches and waits for the end of daily terrors.
Time for Discernment
With so many competing claims, it’s often hard to tell who’s fake and who’s factual. To arrive at truth, we must be prepared to question and investigate what our leaders tell us.
Therefore…
How do we know how to act when everything we counted on seems to be over? First Peter recommends exercising self-control, remaining clear-headed, and serving people in need.
Why Bother?
Sometimes we do too much. Sometimes we do too little. When Covid-19 is but a faint memory, I wonder what story we will tell about ourselves.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G
This is not the moment, if there ever was one, to prove anything to anyone. It’s a time to be real, and to let that be the good thing it is.
God Is Still Sleeping
If rest is so holy and if God has rested since the dawn of Creation, should I worry that God will sleep through my own storms and ignore my pleas for help?
No Good Christians
Christianity has little to do with being a good person. The essence of the Christian faith is this: God loves us not because we are good but because God is good.
Clothed with Power
We need God’s PPE right now. To be clothed with the power of God’s love that overcomes despair. And clothed with the power of God’s peace that calms our anxious spirits.
Exactly
What would the founders of your church say about the living waters God and your pastors are pouring through your screen each week despite the shuttered sanctuary?
The Power of Patience
There are so many times I want God to just hand over my problems and let me figure out a solution. So many of us share the kryptonite of the “just let me do it” spirit.
The Same Boat
Rather than claiming we’re in the same boat, the gospel tells me to find out about my neighbor’s boat. Seek to understand their experience of this storm.
At the Cross
We’re right always to insist on hope. But maybe not so reflexively, maybe not so fast. F Faith isn’t faith if it marches us straight to glory without passing despair.
It’s Going to Be Bad
Friends, it’s bad these days – for a lot of reasons. Many of us feel unprepared. Instability is on public display. Keep holding on to love. Remember that you’re not alone.
Wait…How Long?
The story of deliverance from global devastation is a story of counting days. It’s a story that reminds me I am not the first child of God to feel the way I am feeling.
The Longest Shortest Time
Time does weird things. It drags and flies, expands and contracts. And through it all, God is patient with us.
Keep Crying
If we cry out, and God doesn’t answer, it doesn’t mean we are not worthy of attention. It just means we need to keep crying. Perhaps a little louder.
Belonging
In this Mother’s Day season, I appreciate the tribe of women. The ones that help their daughters survive. The ones that bond around mission. Belonging can be a joy.
He Fell on His Face
Every congregation, every social justice organization, has earth-shattering crises when we fall on our faces in despair, in exhaustion, in shame, in humility, in prayer.
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled
The troubles of our context cannot negate the blessed assurance of our consciousness.
In Your Hands
The suffering of grief, both present and anticipatory, is painful and real, and it will remain as long as we remain divided, as long as power is used to harm rather than heal.
Previously On…
If you, like me, are having days where it feels like the story is coming to an end, remember. All you have been through to get to this point. All the obstacles overcome.
Mud Lake
When I was new to kayaking, I would never have discovered Mud Lake unless someone had told me what it felt like, smelled like, looked like, and had brought me there in person.
Earth’s Joy
While humanity observes a relative degree silence – whether from virus or fatigue, with grief or frustration – all the earth continues to sing God’s praise.
One-Hit Wonder
Karaoke is one of the activities I do when I’m reaching for joy. Belting ‘I Will Survive’ to dancing strangers makes joy seem possible again.
Learn to Weep
In these awful days of virus-related illness and death, whenever we’re asked why these things happen, let’s not be quick to answer.
Suffering is Optional
We can’t get through life without pain. From temporary toothaches to enduring heartbreaks, pain is part of the human condition.
Manna and Meat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needsYou can need meat and be grateful for manna at the same time. So thank God for the basics, and thank God, too, for those things essential for full—not just minimal—life.
The Feast at the Feeder
We are accustomed to finding purpose in doing and busyness, but stay-at-home orders prevent much of that. Meanwhile, the flowers of the field still grow.
The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living
Waiting on the Lord does not put our dreams on indefinite hold. Waiting on the Lord places our dreams on an immediate process of unfolding. Faith is not just eternal but imminent.
Be Careful What You Ask For
It seems to me that we’ve been ‘social distancing’ as Americans for quite some time now. Polarization, breaking into camps and tribes. Leaders sowing division to hold onto power.
The Potter’s Wheel
A lot matters about how we choose to connect to the so-called least of these. Be careful of the Messiah complex, but not of relationship with the Messiah.
An Amen for the Night Help
In Psalm 134, the blessings of the Most High are called down upon all those who labor behind the scenes. We have the responsibility of helping to realize those blessings.
A Time to De-Clutter
This crisis is reminding me that I have to work just as hard to protect myself, from the inside out, so as not to cause harm. Perhaps I am not the only one.
The Better Part
Something is happening. Which is not to say that this moment is an opportunity or – God forbid! – a gift. But we might do well to live differently, even just for the moment.
A Time to De-Clutter
This crisis is reminding me that I have to work just as hard to protect myself, from the inside out, so as not to cause harm. Perhaps I am not the only one.
A Good Cry
How hard this season is – for God and for us! When we give in and have a good cry, we are never alone in it. For this, I am grateful.
Turning the Corner
We may experience isolation, but we are not alone. We may feel that we are at an end, but we are only at a beginning. This is the promise of faith, of resurrection.
With the Voice of Thanksgiving
There is no telling what mess and depths you or me or this world might be in today. Wherever we are, may we remember God is still with us and still hears our cries.
Time Out
Holy One, we pray to you from the belly of a pandemic. We don’t know how we will come out of this, but we pray we too will be converted.
So Much Leaven
We all go a little reptile-brained once in a while, especially these days. It’s OK. It’s also never too late to hitch your thinking back up into the ole prefrontal cortex.
Doubting Thomas
Perhaps our calling in this moment isn’t to point fingers at skeptics but to create a world where truth and love are ever-present.
He Called My Name
There’s a difference between resurrection as a doctrine, and resurrection as a word with our name on it. It is often amid grief and confusion that resurrection becomes personal.
Last of All, Also to Me
Nobody loves being last. But Paul wasn’t ashamed of being the last and the least admirable. We too are latecomers, yet even to us, Christ appears.
Sufficient
One lot – one life – is no more and no less than what God promises. Just one – not two or three or five or all. Just one. And these limits are good. These limits are godly.
Much More
The days that followed the Boston Marathon bombing on this date in 2013 were the first time I heard the phrase ‘shelter in place.’ Afterward we wondered: would it ever be the same?
What’s in Your Closet?
All this physical distancing makes this a good time to go through my literal and metaphorical closets to make sure they reflect who and whose I know myself to be.
This is Not the End
The original Easter story has still never ended. It goes on, in endless song, above earth’s lamentations.
Be a Witness
This is one of the challenges of the Easter promise. The world can be seemingly falling apart, and we’re called to believe that salvation is still possible.
Nothing, Everything
‘Take nothing with you,’ Jesus once said. Today the dead Jesus lies in a grave not his own. And today we wait to see if he was right to live so dispossessed.
You Didn’t Have to Do That
Here’s a heretical opinion: it didn’t need to be the cross. Jesus could have died in his sleep, and it would have meant as much. The redemptive thing is that God showed up.
To Do
The little red number on the email icon tells me just how many things people ask me to do. Look at your icons. What reminds you to follow Jesus in your tasks for today?
You Will Betray Me
What makes this week holy is not our pretensions to innocence. What makes this week holy is the invitation to confess our betrayals and be forgiven.
An Ancient Ordinary Thing
Sometimes what makes us whole are the same old things our grandmothers recommended, the remedies our ancestors believed in, the ancient ordinary things.
With His Own Blood
But despite the apprehensions many of us have around the very thought of blood, blood is life, and blood adequately reflects the gravity and severity of God’s love for us.
Grounded
Someone wise said that walking is just controlled falling. When we put one foot in front of the other, we control our falling every time we move. We make a decision to move on.
Radical Rest-Taking
The gifts of sabbath are radically subversive and exceedingly compassionate. In a society that values constant achievement and over-functioning, sabbath keeps us intact.
The Relief of Facts
Maybe it was a miracle. Maybe it was magic. Or maybe it was this: maybe Moses just forced them to truly examine at what they were dealing with: not vampires, but snakes.
Honest to God
I wonder if Jesus prayed the psalms in the days before going to Jerusalem. I wonder if it gave him comfort that he could be that honest with God about his terror and grief.
Noah’s Advice
I miss the future. All I can see is a different future: the end of the office, the end of school, the end of church. The end. We are on this journey without a map, without guides.
The Hard Stuff
We’re not terribly interested in the hard stuff of life, are we? Fortunately, it is the nature of God to go straight into and through the hardest stuff, so we know we are not alone.
Everything Is Changing
The pandemic is revealing, once again, what really matters, and what the good gifts of life are that don’t arrive by two-day shipping.
Provoking Love
During this Lenten season, I commit to inserting joy and laughter into my daily fight for justice and peace. I commit to saying ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry.’
Sometimes Too Much is Just Right
While Martha served dinner, Mary sat on the floor and poured fragrant perfume over Jesus’ feet. To some, her behavior seemed over-the-top. But sometimes too much is just right.
In This Economy?
There is enough wealth to care for the sick and the poor, the hospital and the small business, the grandparent and the grandchild. Not if we continue with business as usual.
The Last Duet
Grandma was the first person who taught me about the power of agape love, and I believe the legacy of her agape love and persistent joy is still saving my life every day.
Watered by Tears
God, you do not cause us to suffer. Instead, you take the suffering we are given and plant it in the soil of your transforming grace and mercy. May we rejoice in the harvest.
A Jar of Oil
Let’s not pretend with one another that loving God means you will never be broke. Because I’m not the only person of faith who ignores the 1-800 numbers of creditors calling.
In Every Respect
Being tested turned Jesus tender. As we struggle every day, driven by fears, distracted by shiny objects, overcrowded with longings, doing the best we can, Jesus sympathizes.
Thought, Word, and Deed
What thoughts floating around your head cause you to sink into a kind of low-grade, chronic hell? And keep you from being somewhat less than a living sacrifice to God?
The Parable of Dirty Underwear
It’s awkward to imagine the Holy One in underwear. But like tighty-whities, the Lenten journey is mostly a journey of subtraction, paring down, and clinging to nothing but God.
Grace Made Plain
I imagine God speaking plainly: ‘I could walk out right now and leave you cringing in your corner. But I am going to surprise you. I am going to give you another chance.’
Those Stones
Traveling light is a young person’s game. Everything seems disposable when you’ve got time to replace it.
Investigation Incomplete
Any evaluation of a person without regard for that person’s core values is incomplete. Incomplete assessments of who people are, beyond what they possess, leads us into battles.
Holy Venting
Honestly? Sometimes I wonder if the whole Lenten self-examination thing doesn’t spur us (read: me) toward endless naval gazing and even greater self-centeredness.
Cursing and Coaxing
Whatever it takes to wake me, Holy One, I will give you thanks. By coax or by curse, lead me once more to the trouble and beauty of being fully alive in your justice and joy.
The Burden of Hatred
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. – Ephesians 4:26-27
Fearful Empathy
No matter how much you know, or how often you wash, don’t you feel foreboding? So summon empathy from that quavering place where we all feel afraid and just be kind.
My Soul Desire
Lent is about both emptying ourselves and offering ourselves as empty vessels. Lent is an opportunity to God to fill up our longing for love, justice, and shalom.
My Biggest Bucket
The divine presence with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, could have easily put the fire out, but instead, they walked in the fire with them. And that was enough to save them.
Chocolate and Other Habits
Two weeks into Lent, how are those Lenten practices you planned to observe faithfully? Still going strong? No shame if they’re not. But also, no kudos if they are.
Unfinished
Your belief that you’re supposed to accomplish it all—end racism, fix the environment, overcome all your issues, whatever—before you die? It’s not going to work out.
Intercessory Prayer and Boundaries
In intercessory prayer, we are placing those we care about in God’s hands—and relaxing our own grip.
‘Tis of Thee
Where is our citizenship? To whom do we pledge our first allegiance? What is the color, the face of liberty? Who gets to taste the sweetness of country?
Arrogance v. Confidence
Arrogance converts our fears to venomous hate. Confidence transforms our fears into audacious courage.
God’s Ostrich
How funny of God to create an ostrich with the ability to run like hell and the tendency to bury its head in the sand. Probably we have all tried these two solutions to problems.
For God So Loved the Cosmos
The cosmos is not separate from you or outside of you. You are it. You are God’s love. That’s what Jesus came to reveal, then and now.
Always Contrite
It’d be a good thing to adopt contrition as a way of life, not just an occasional response to a particular sin. The best heart to have would be an always contrite heart.
Burning Like a Fire
Not all anger is poison. Anger can be holy fuel to right the world’s wrongs. But I can’t fool myself: not all my anger is holy. A lot of my anger is poison.
Perfected Distraction
Perfectionism may leave us paralyzed, afraid to do anything for fear of getting it wrong. My tangle with this word, perfected, distracts me from the truth: God is love.
Foreigners Included
There is no valid appreciation of what God has given us, without the inclusion of foreigners: those who are in our neighborhoods and those who are at our borders.
The Burden of Money
Money is a deeply spiritual issue because it has tremendous power over our psyches and well-being. Fear and shame about money do the work of evil just as much as our love of it.
When the Devil Quotes Scripture
Before you tell your sibling that God has a purpose for their suffering, maybe check whether your faith is unnecessarily saddled with the baggage of Scripture-as-litmus-test.
Wings
How much room is there under a God-wing? Enough for me and you, says the psalmist. I guess that’s also nice, but then I’m like, wait, does that mean everybody gets to come in?
Mic Drop
Walk a little longer. Listen a little more intently. Pray a whole lot more. Open your heart just a bit wider and watch what the gracious, merciful, slow-to-anger God can do.
Sorry
Dear God, as we prepare to enter Lent, remind us that bearing the sign of the cross on our forehead is not enough. Guide us toward true acknowledgment and sincere amends.
Meetings
My hunch is that our many meetings might be redeemed, or at least different, if we entertained the notion that our main reason for meeting together is to encounter God.
Blackness
We do not blame the night sky for being night. We rest in it. And that Blackness is beautiful.
Questions that Begin with How
As children of God, we have the opportunity to ask different questions than the rest of the world asks. Questions that help us truly meet one another on holy, even ground.
Beating Up Brother
It’s hard to be obedient to your parent when you’re bent on bashing your brother.
Sketch
Next time you get to church early or the sermon gets boring, look around. Ask yourself: which parts of this building look like heaven? Conversely, which ones fall short?
Still, Though
“I’m looking for a sign,” said my friend.
Somebody’s Watching You
It’s easy to get so consumed in a crisis that you think the crisis is all about you. It’s easy to forget that even in times of stress, our lives are testimonies of the Holy Spirit.
Wait for Each Other
At the world’s table, the wealthy, the privileged, and the strong devour everyone’s share of life. At the Lord’s table, mutual deference is the sacrament’s outward sign.
Trying to Get There
O God, get us to the heavenly feast. And when we arrive, may we meet one stranger after another who welcomes us, as though we truly belonged.
Keeping up with the Phoneses
Cultural messages that I thought were harmless growing up, I now realize were problematic all along. Blessed are those who manage to get it all right! I am working to do better.
Dear John
I love you. There. I said it first. I hope—though the world keeps breaking your heart—that you take it as a sign your heart is actually working as it was intended.
Resistance Training
Everywhere we turn, we are offered opportunities for resistance training. The path of least resistance is also the path of least growth.
Get Angry
Don’t feel like you have to be nice all the time. Don’t feel like you always have to accommodate and compromise and stir in honey. Go ahead, release your inner table-over-turner.
Gobsmacked and Gorgeous
Just when I am tempted to give up on the entire human enterprise, I am gobsmacked all over again by the utterly spectacular resilience of the human-divine spirit.
God Is Not Worried
We tend to project our anxiety onto the Creator. We imagine God’s hands wringing with concern, pondering the next move. Nope. God’s at peace. And God wants the same for us.
Chiasmus
How wondrous to rediscover the language and literary style of Jesus, whose words are forever unveiling themselves in new and ancient forms.
Bent, Not Broken
We’re quick to declare things as broken and ready to discard. The intensity of life’s stressors can diminish our capacity to see God’s unfolding grace within us and around us.
Rising in the Darkness
You don’t have to be a literal morning person to rise in the darkness and cast some light of faith and warmth for the rest of us.
Trial and Error
What has God’s faithfulness done to us, that we reject humility? How has God’s love wearied us, that we neglect mercy? How do we answer for our persistent injustice?
Inoculate Me
Parents sometimes sacrifice children on the altars of our careers. Government sacrifices children on the altar of defense spending. God rejects child sacrifice—Abraham’s and ours.
Needy Jesus
Nobody preaches about Jesus belching. Which is a shame, and maybe a heresy in this world where getting your bodily needs fully met is a privilege reserved for the few.
Love’s Emancipation
Change that is deep and abiding requires a change of heart, and a change of heart is precisely what the love of God is all about.
Unmoved
There are no perfect people, only people who pretend they are. Perfection as a requirement for access to God leads to pinched lips, ruler smacks, and bonfires.
God’s Gentle Partners
Viewing the planet as personal property to be divvied up among the worthy runs counter to the ‘earth-honoring faith’ that we need in our environmentally perilous time.
God-Watching
Just for today, become a God-watcher. Stop frequently in your travels from here to there. Lift up your heart, put your senses on alert, filter through the ordinary for the extraordinary.
Good Meetings
What might make us not give up meeting together? If we don’t learn how to self-govern ourselves in meetings, what will happen to self-governance and democracy?
What Kind of World Did You Wake Up In?
More than fear, more than anger, more than hope, more than anything, what I feel is an eerie sense of coming doom. Yet I remain confident that the promises of God are true.
Can’t Say Nothin’?
The police found a way to make my daughter pay for attempting to have agency and use her voice. But God does not require us to remain silent in the face of injustice.
God’s Preferred Material
Remember choosing teams for this or that, and dreading being chosen last? Last is God’s preferred candidate. The unlikely is God’s idea of a good time.
Can You Keep a Secret?
Secrets are destructive. To families. To congregations. To bodies. They divide us. They drive us to avoid each other. They make understanding impossible.
Organists and Sinners
Jesus caught a lot of criticism from the religious leaders about the company he kept. Those leaders ended up sounding pretty unkind, and a little too sure they were in the right.
A House, A Temple, A Tent, A Shelter
It’s a temptation to believe we will find God only if we build the perfect structure and light the candles lit correctly. But God is ready to live with you wherever you are.
Turn, Turn, Turn
The ancestors are whispering, and just like the breeze they’re about to shout. Turn. Chant a different tune, set a new pace, call forth a shifted order that says: you matter.
Listen Up
What did Isaiah say in troubled times? In a word: reconnect with the One who was both the first and the last, who had laid the foundation of the earth and heavens.
The Finger and The Moon
The Bible that points to God is not God. The theology that points to God is not God. The church that points to God is not God. The pastor who points to God is not God.
On Not Knowing
To be faced with something we don’t know can feel quite shameful. For a lot of us, especially in some circles, not knowing can feel like a crime. Rather than risk it, we nod knowingly.
A Better Me
I get defensive more than I’d like to admit. I look at my flaws and can’t imagine someone would love me. But people who love me don’t shield me from the ways I need to evolve.
Good Morning
Joy comes when we understand that desperate times cannot prevent the fulfillment of God’s promise in our lives. Even in the night, God is moving us toward better days.
Hand and Foot
Be grateful if you’ve been on the receiving end of selflessness, but don’t regard the service of others as their duty and your right.
Welcoming Questions
Things seem so hard right now. Disturbance drives us deep, below the rocks, into our cores. We can welcome disturbance as something pregnant with good.
Bruised, Broken, Smoldering, Snuffed Out
Headlines full of over-the-top violent imagery agitate our inflamed emotions and rub the raw places in our spirits. Be mindful of where they lead, and remember Who you follow.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
We sometimes live in a full-sun spirituality that can make our eyes ache. We need the respite of night, the salvific hibernation of a rainy winter day, the relief of tears.
Password Power
Blessed, indeed, are the people who’ve wised up to only having to know one password. That one password relieves the pressure of thinking they can do it on their own.
Watch Your Mouth
I’m not too worried about the kind of bad words my child knows. What I want her to learn is the power of words to build up a person—and the power of words to tear down.
Even Spots Can Be Changed
A leopard can’t change its spots, some say. But humans are not leopards, and hearts are not spots. We all lose when we refuse to acknowledge the holy transformation of others.
Apocalypse Not Now
There is a sense that time is winding up; it’s certain we can’t go on long this way. Paul’s words send me out to live in such a way that all creation will have a few more laps to run.
Skate Expectations
I love ice skating, by which I mean, I love watching other people ice skate on a screen from my couch. So much of what people do in life is much harder than it looks.
Gifts Given
That new, shiny thing? We can delight in it for a time, but it will lose its luster. And then we look for the next hit. God calls us to shape our lives around greater gifts.
Far More
Maybe you have a set of New Year’s resolutions that are beginning to seem more a burden than a blessing. Here’s good news. It’s not all on you, not all up to you. God is able.
Gifts Given
That new, shiny thing? We can delight in it for a time, but it will lose its luster. And then we look for the next hit. God calls us to shape our lives around greater gifts.
Epiphany
The answer is in the sky, not in more effort or more determination or more willpower. Look up, not around. Look deep, not shallow. Look long, not short. Signs are calling your name.
Worthy Is the Leader
The rule of law is not oppressive if that rule is grounded in God’s love for all: advocating for the poor, supporting the weak, taking a stand against destructive violence.
Merry Christmas!
I hope your eggnog hasn’t soured, that you haven’t recycled the tree and moved on to other things. I hope you’re still in Christmas. I hope Christmas is still in you.
From the Farthest Parts of the Earth
Our church is filled at this time of year with processionals of children as angels, shepherds, and magi. The world, too, is full of processions as refugees seek new life and hope.
Eight Days In
A little more than a week after Jesus’ birth, Mary is starting to realize how much work this is really going to take. Are you?
In the Beginning
Our big days and calendars are really of little importance to the God who created us. God existed before time itself, and God is consistently present in every day.