Pastors' Blog
Sometime in college, I first heard the phrase, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." It has since become a favorite trope of progressives and social justice-oriented Christians, of people who want and need to make the distinction between doing acts of charity and actually challenging the systems that keep inequality and injustice in place.
The man who said it was a small-framed, deeply spiritual powerhouse...
This week we retell the old, familiar story.
Three days of it are heart-rendering, gruesome, heavy, horrific, devastating. Hard stuff.
And then it all turns glorious, sunshiny, radiant, hopeful, exuberant. Fun stuff.
It’s a roller-coaster week. One that is important for us to re-trace on a regular basis. Why? Because it’s a story about how the world works. It’s the genesis of our faith story. It’s human...
Grace to you and peace, from the One who is and was and is to come!
My friends, Holy Week is upon us! This is a roller-coaster of a week where we follow the story of Jesus’s ‘triumphal’ entry into Jerusalem, through the story of the last supper and the betrayal, to the crucifixion and Jesus’s death, finally arriving at Easter. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
It’s an easy thing to do, though, come to think of it…to race ahead to the finish line, to leap from the...
This Sunday, we return to the narrative lectionary and our reading of texts from John's Gospel that we normally only hear during Holy Week.
We will hear about Roman Governor Pontius Pilate's questioning of Jesus and the crowds, trying to determine whether he should follow the people's pleas to send this radical self-proclaimed messiah to his death or follow his own indifference and just let him go free (...
For five years now, we have had the great blessing to share worship once a year with our friends at Temple Shir Tikva, both with shabbat services at their home in Wayland and Sunday morning worship here in Brookline. Susan, our Minister of Music, and Shir Tikva's Cantor, Hollis, have forged this...
If someone were to prompt you to write a list of "Top Disciples Who Betrayed Jesus" (I can't really think of a situation in which someone would ever ask you to make this list, but humor me), Judas would probably be your easy #1, and after that...well, did anyone else betray Jesus? This week's scripture passage reminds us that others failed Jesus in His time of need, in quieter ways than in a dramatic exchange for a bag full of silver. And it's in these more quiet ways that we might see...
For our Sundays in Lent, we are following scripture readings from the Narrative Lectionary, a liturgical guide to help us in planning worship. Interestingly, it has us reading parts of John's Gospel that we might not normally get to until Holy Week: Jesus' trial before the high priests, Peter's denial, his trial before Pilate, and for this Sunday, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples (...
Welcome to the beginning of Lent!
I often find myself caught between conflicting impulses in Lent, both wanting to use it as a time to kick bad habits or start new ones, and yet cautious about treating it as a second chance at tackling my New Year's resolutions, instead of a chance to really think about how to let go of what has distanced me from God and live into ways of being that can bring me closer to God.
And perhaps that's the difference: New Year's resolutions focus on...
The season of Lent is upon us. I'm excited.
It may seem weird to be excited about Lent. It's a penitential season, right? You're supposed to confess more, wear ashes and sackcloth, give up stuff you really like, correct? Maybe.
I like Lent, because in the cold, enduring days of northern hemispheric winter, as the days lengthen (Old English -- lencten), Lent is an invitation to dig in, to find something new, to remember our souls in deeper, more intentional ways. It means it's...
This Sunday we will look at the classic story of Jesus meeting the "woman at the well." (John 4:1-42).
I grew up singing a sweet (and slightly hokey) Evangelical hymn that contemporized this story:
Like the woman at the well, I was seeking for things that could not satisfy. And then I heard my Savior speaking, “Draw from My well that never shall run dry.”
Fill my cup, Lord; I lift it up Lord; come...
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