At some point, any of us who need to preach have to ask the question of when to tear up the previous plan and move a new one. After the combination of Buffalo, the report from the SBC, and Uvalde, the time was this week. This last few days have been a riptide. How do we manage to get out? Lamentations 3 and Mark 9 give us clues.

What if we engage in self-care with the other in mind?

In the end, the Holy Story of healing is with Tabitha and those widows. They were given gifts of deep work and worth by someone who just overflowed with the desire to serve. Tabitha is a disciple - following Jesus, living out the Holy Story.

Sometimes it requires a wholesale reconsideration of our ways - John demands that from us. David demonstrates it. It could be the boldness of Abraham, or Moses. It could also be the boldness of them within their fear. But, as Christians, if we believe that the center of our faith is this one John is saying is coming, then perhaps each of these characters comes with us, too. Perhaps the “great cloud of witnesses” that gets talked about is heading to where we’re going. That maybe it’s not a straightforward journey - it requires U-turns and recalculations and pulling out the map again and again. But we can head that way, and we have examples along the way.

What good is caring for relationships and the Creation is all is lost and hopeless?

God can hoist us upon our own petards. And that might be good. As we show up, the moments where things happen become the moments where we actually see God’s action. It’s happening everywhere else, but here’s where it becomes real. The unjust judge giving justice even with bad reason. Who else BUT God makes that happen?

A sermon about the need to lament. Our need to mourn is critical, and what this time has done is distill some of the worst brokenness of our society. To actually live with it might help us move with it and past it.

A reflection on the prodigal.