After Jesus shares his parable, after he sows this mystery of imagination and wonder, he gathers his disciples for a private tutorial. Readers find themselves wondering at this point too, though...

Jesus, the Rabbi of the People, sits in a boat to teach the standing-room only crowd. In this gesture he evokes the history of God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel and poses...

Thanks be to God for the gift of life in the Spirit! Made members of Christ’s body through baptismal washing into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, we are “set free from...

Paul contrasts life in the flesh with life in the Spirit, but not in the way we typically assume. Our distorted interpretive legacy of equating flesh with the body has led...

For God’s people, Israel, the Mosaic law became the heartbeat of life. It was the ubiquitous communal curriculum (to be written on doorposts, strapped to foreheads, recited upon going out and...

One day, returning famished from a hunting trip, Esau sniffs out his brother’s famous lentil stew and demands a bowlful. Jacob agrees to his request . . . in exchange for...

Stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Old Testament read like plots from juicy reality television. The second half of Genesis 25 finds an aging couple, Rebekah and Isaac, unexpectedly...

We worship a God who took on flesh—who intimately understands the heaviness of being human. Jesus knows our burdens. He feels our weariness. And he doesn’t leave us to hold all...

The liberating love of a God who enters into covenants with us and makes a way for miracles in the mundane—who brings heaven to earth and has been weaving a sacred...

There’s freedom in saying, “I don’t know.” We can almost see Paul fall to his knees and throw up his hands in today's reading. We can almost hear the desperation in...