A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

It says it right there in psalm 103, "For God knows whereof we are made, God remembers that we are but dust..." There is a wonderful little email floating around that tells the story of a little kid who asks his priest or his parents, can't remember which, at the end of the Ash Wednesday Service, the question, "What is butt dust???" Nothing fun or cool has ever really happened to me like that in the five years I have been running around the Church, some day I imagine something will happen and it will be the story that I bore people to death with in some sermon I preach year after year... But for now, I have to depend on this cute little email that captures my own unsaid as of yet out loud thoughts about how dangerous religious language can be sometimes. Ash Wednesday is right around the corner, this Wednesday as a matter of fact, and it brings with it time for self reflection and other things that help us "Rend our hearts", help us to change our way ...

I am sick, and I have been sick all week, and it is no fun what so ever, what I have discovered during this time of illness, one of the worst since I have been in High School I think, is something that I have never expereinced before. I am so plugged up, I am so stuffed up, I can't taste or smell a darn thing! Sara cooked brownies the other day, couldn't smell 'em at all. I cooked bacon for breakfast and coudln't smell it either. I tried to chow down some oranges as well, thinking the Vitamin C would solve all my problems and I would be able to taste those, no luck. I have scented candles going strong in my office right now as I write, don't smell a thing! Taste and smell are completley blocked by all the, well, you know what they are blocked by, nothing can get through. It is no fun, no fun at all. This coming Sunday, tomorrow in fact, is a Transfiguration Sunday, I say "a" becasue I guess its celebrated in August some time as well, anyway, I am h...

I recently was visited at Gethsemane by a young woman who was studying religious denominations other than her own, which was Lutheran. She called and asked if it would be OK to attend two services for her class. I said of course and she arrived to study us! At the end of her time she emailed me one question that caused me to stop an think, why do you invite everyone to the table at Eucharist was essentially what she asked. My response, which I hope to flesh out a bit more as time goes by was as follows: I say, each Sunday, "This is Christ's table, open to all people of every race, class, gender, faith, belief or today no belief at all, come and be fed by the gifts of God for all of us, the people of God." (Thank you Howard Anderson). The key phrase there is "This is Christ's table." If we are to model the life of Christ as disciples of Christ, then we are called also to have the same table fellowship patterns that Jesus followed in the Bible. Jesus ...