Palm Sunday [audio recording here]
The royal Son of David rides into his city, the city of his fathers, and we flank Him round with reeds and branches waving madly in our hands. Tree branches punctuate key moments in our tale: Our story begins in a garden with trees […]
Some note on the way 'That Hideous Strength' begins
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The title of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength comes from a line by Sir David Lyndsay describing the biblical Tower of Babel. It thus sets Babel and, by consequence, the call of Abram as a kind of illuminating flambeau by which we can enter the story. This is, in other words, a story about the dream of Babel and all of the ways in which ‘Babel’ (in all its permutations) twists the real hope of humanity:
Read moreThe unwritten grey: Lent meets a 'Better Call Saul' fan theory
…But “Better Call Saul” does something else, also. Juxtaposed with the in-color “past” which is the bulk of the show, is black-and-white footage from Jimmy’s future: on the run from his former life, living under an alias, working at a Cinnabon in a mall in North Dakota.
Let me make sure you’re following: Jimmy’s past is presented in full color, but his future is in black-and-white. It lacks color.
Read moreLove, eros, agape
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It is a curious thing when a Lutheran theologian and Friedrich Nietzsche are fond to be in agreement. Nietzche bemoaned the ways in which Christ (his great enemy) had spoiled and ruined eros —that is erotic love. Jesus the Galilean had come and ushered-in an age of charity and had done away with the dark and alluring erotic core of heathenism. Anders Nygren, writing later, agreed. Eros is for Nygren something that no Christian should have anything to do with —really and truly. Sure, we may experience romantic affection but the real core of the world was agape —selfless charity.
Read moreThere are no donut trees in the Garden of Eden
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“What does he mean that there are no donut trees in the Garden of Eden?”
Simply, it means just that. There are no donut trees in the Garden of Eden, just as there will be no bourbon-bushes in heaven, nor jewelry-shrubs in the Resurrection. It points to the fact that God created a world with a potential for further creation. It points further to the fact that when God created Adam and Eve, He created them in His Image, and that a part of that Image is being a little creator —with a lower case “c”— like Him.
Read moreRepost: The burning of the palm branches during Shrovetide
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There is some intentional thematic parity between Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Palm Sunday. It is not without purpose that we save last year’s palm branches, hang them, watch them dry, and then burn them on Shrove Tuesday. It is also not without purpose that it is from those smoldering remains that we get the ashes for Ash Wednesday. The three are tied together.
Read more"Be silent!" on the structure of Mark 1:21-28
Our Gospel lesson from Sunday, Mark 1:21-28, is a great example of a chiasm. It is also a great example of how a chiasm, other than being a nifty piece of literary trivia, can help us understand and teach the Bible —can help us ask of a given part of scripture “what’s this mean?” and “what is the main point?”
Read moreC.S. Lewis and the care of the body
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When Elwin Ransom finds himself alone on the strange world of ‘Malacandra’ in C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, he is running from wicked men, from monstrous beasts in the water, and from elongated ogrish creatures called ‘sorns’.
Amid all the fear, the nervous running, the panting breaths, something marvelous unfolds: a renewed affection, a love lost long ago, for his own body. He begins to feel “a strange affection towards himself” so much so that he has to check “himself on the point of saying, ‘We’ll stick to one another’” (49).
Read moreGenesis and The Calling of St. Nathanael
Jusepe Ribera’s Saint Bartholomew Holding a Knife
In preaching this week on the calling of St. Nathanael, I had to trim some thoughts out of my sermon. Here are what I found to be some interesting notes in the short passage of John 1:43-51 that didn’t make this Sunday’s cut.
Read moreOn carrying others like Bob Cratchit
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When the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come shows Scrooge the Cratchit mourning Cratchit household, Bob Cratchit —the Father— is absent. He is late returning from selecting a grave-plot for Tiny Tim who has passed away and lays in state until that coming Sunday when they will burry him. Bob is not late because of the errand, he is late because “he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings…” (Christmas Carol, Stave 4) explains Peter, the eldest Cratchit boy.
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