Rev. Peter JB Carman, Binkley Baptist Church (Chapel Hill)
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia about baptism, it seems he had a whole lot more than water on his mind. He was writing to a church divided right from the very beginning. While he was welcoming in the non Jewish pagans, others weren’t so sure. While he was trying to help negotiate the beginnings of a multi-cultural Christian faith, others were, even from the very beginning, more comfortable with those who were their own people. Jews had every reason to be suspicious of Romans—after all they had suffered under the hand of their occupation governments for many years. [...]
Continue reading Inviting the Uninvited
Rev. Deborah Patterson
Babylonian captivity. I believe we are there again, both literally and figuratively. We are literally in Babylon as American troops serve in an unending war in Iraq, the new name for that land. And, working with parish nurses, daily I hear stories which attest that we are figuratively being held captive by a health system that excludes millions, bankrupts millions, and keeps millions in jobs they despise but need for health insurance. Doctors are held captive by reimbursement plans that penalize them for spending more than 7 or 8 minutes with patients. Nurses are held captive by staffing patterns that keep them working longer shifts, with more and sicker and patients to care for. Churches are being held captive by health insurance costs that prevent them from being able to call full-time pastors. [...]
Continue reading No Joy For You
Ellen Davis, Duke Divinity School (Durham)
Reading the Bible is my line of work, yet for years I read past the first chapter’s detailed attention to the food supply, as have my fellow biblical scholars. I now realize that my profession’s obliviousness about food in the Bible points to a deep and worrisome difference between a modern cultural mindset and the culture that all the biblical writers represent. The difference comes down to this: for them, eating and agriculture have to do with God, and for us they do not. [...]
Continue reading Being a Creature Means You Eat
Rev. Mel Williams, Watts Street Baptist Church (Durham)
William Blake was a poet who understood the meaning of mercy—the unearned, undeserved gift of God’s grace. Mercy is the character of God; mercy is God’s very self-understanding. When we beg for mercy, or forgiveness, we are reaching for God, for God is mercy. This is the character of God, stated throughout the Old Testament: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. [...]
Continue reading Blessed are the Merciful
Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, Duke University Chapel (Durham)
These are the kinds of images that come into our minds when we hear the word peace. Such a diverse range of uses makes the word peace seem either vague and idealistic or cynical and manipulative. The New Testament is neither vague nor idealistic nor cynical nor manipulative. It has two words for peace. One of those words is Jesus. Ephesians chapter 2 gives us perhaps the most concise description of the way Jesus is peace. Here are the five ways that Jesus is peace. All of them center on the word “one.” [...]
Continue reading He Is Our Peace
Ginny Tobiassen, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (Winston-Salem)
“Now, there was a woman.” Right away, these few words tell us that today’s gospel story is going to be about someone among society’s second class—or lower. Women in first-century Jewish society were of subordinate status. So it is clear from the start that we are looking here at a story about someone already somewhat marginalized simply by being born female. We might say: “Now, there was a woman: Strike one.” [...]
Continue reading From the Back of the Crowd
Rev. Cliff Frasier, First Congregational Church, UCC (Washington, D.C.)
In the policy-making reform-world, we may talk about health care as a “right.” In the economic world we may talk about health care as a cost or even as a profit. [“p-r-o-f-i-t]. In the health-care-delivery world, the social-work-world, we may talk about health care as a need. But in our faith world, let us also talk about health care as a responsibility. As a moral responsibility. To care for God’s creation — for ourselves, for each other. Let us talk about not-providing-health-care as a failure in the realm of moral-responsibility. In other words, to the degree we allow within moral reasoning the category of . . . . “sin” . . . let us allow the failure to provide healthcare to be understood in just that way. [...]
Continue reading Don’t You Care?
Rev. Nancy Petty, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church (Raleigh)
While in Oxford I attended a worship service in which the bishop began his sermon with the words, “Most of you know that I usually don’t stick to the scripture when I preach. However, today will be different.” Immediately, he had my attention. I thought, “Is that an option, to not stick to the scripture?” At least in my mind-and I am aware that you might have a different opinion-I always try to stick to the scripture. I do so, mainly, because I love exploring the stories of our faith, but also because I think that is what I am supposed to do. But now this bishop had given me something new to think about. [...]
Continue reading Religion and Ecology
Rev. Dr. Christopher C. F. Chapman, Knollwood Baptist Church (Winston-Salem)
For we can believe all kinds of things about God and have all the right positions on ethical issues, whatever those are, but if we don’t have love, who wants to be part of the church? We can have great ministries for all ages, the best staff, the most up-to-date programs with all the whistles and bells, but if the people of the church don’t genuinely love each other, who cares? We can have the best maintained buildings and grounds, the latest equipment and technologies, the perfect organizational structure and communications systems, but if we don’t want to be with each other, the buildings will eventually be empty. We can even claim to have a passion for missions, want to share God’s love with people around the globe, but if we do not love for the person sitting next to us, our passion will be all fire and no warmth. [...]
Continue reading Love Is the Last Word
Dr. H. Stephen Shoemaker, Myers Park Baptist Church
For the love of Christ controls us, lays claim to us, compels us, grasps us at our deepest being. This is the heart of Christianity for Paul: the love of Christ permeating and shaping our lives, sweeping through us as breath carrying oxygen to every cell in the body. Paul’s words in this passage are more than prose; they are incantation. [...]
Continue reading Beholding the New Creation
Rev. David T. Hill, First Church (Oberlin, Ohio)
We’ve heard the stories of those who take great personal risk to cross the desert at night in order to seek out a better life for themselves and their families – entrusting themselves to “hired hands.” “Hired hands” all too ready to exploit the most vulnerable, abandoning their charges in the desert, raping and abusing women and children. Even those who make it safely into this country must keep ever vigilant against the “hired hands” – our “hired hands,” supported by the taxes we pay, who are on the lookout for the stranger, the alien, the undocumented or improperly documented person, eager to return them back across the border or perhaps worse, to prison. [...]
Continue reading Strangers No More
Rev. Amy Jacks Dean, Park Road Baptist Church
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell this same basic story of the healing of this blind beggar, but Mark is the only one to give the man a name – Blind Bartimaeus is how we know him. Jesus is headed to Jerusalem from Capernaum – and all along the way he is talking and teaching and answering questions and listening in on the disciples’ conversations with each other. You know how bad there were to get off track and try to figure out who was the favorite. [...]
Continue reading Don’t You Shush Me
Rev. Steven Shoemaker, Myers Park Baptist Church (Charlotte)
What would I want to say to my son or daughter on Earth Sunday? I would begin by saying that the form of Christianity that bequeathed to me so much grace, truth and faith failed me in my relationship with God’s creation. We were so fixed on saving souls that it was as if the physical world around me were an afterthought of God and therefore an afterthought of Christian concern. [...]
Continue reading To Savor and To Save
Dr. H. Stephen Shoemaker, Myers Park Baptist Church
Two weeks ago I spoke of Jesus the Friend. Today, I want to explore Jesus the Stranger, Jesus as “other,” different, even as “enemy” because sometimes we perceive him as enemy. I was told as a young minister not to get too far ahead of my congregation because they might mistake me for their enemy. Sometimes we mistake Jesus as our enemy. It may seem strange to describe Jesus as Stranger. But this may be the only way to make sure we see him as he is, not as who we want him to be. This is the only way we truly know another, that is, as they are, not our projection of what we wish them to be. [...]
Continue reading Jesus the Stranger
Rev. Ismael Ruiz Millan, Brookland-Brooksdale United Methodist Church (Roxboro)
A bitter debate has taken place in recent years regarding immigration—especially illegal immigration. There are many views in this debate. Some think these “illegal immigrants” do not deserve mercy at all and have even tagged them as “the undeserving.” For instance, in North Carolina, young children whose parents brought them to this country illegally do not have access to higher education. Even though these children did not ask to come to this country, North Carolina law has resolved that they do not deserve to go farther academically because they are “illegal.” On the other hand, others think these “illegal immigrants” deserve mercy. [...]
Continue reading What Do You See?
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