The Prodigal Son
When I was a toddler my favorite story was The Three Bears. Whenever my mother asked me what story I wanted to hear I always said, “The Three Bears.” All my aunts told me The Three Bears until they were blue in the face. Baby sitters moaned and groaned, looked at me, and said, “Phillip! Not again!” But I liked it and even though I knew it by heart I wanted to hear them tell it to me one more time. With vocal inflections. Today we heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Crime and Punishment
As she came into church I asked, “How are you?” She said, “Oh, not so good. My arthritis is kicking up. I just found out my driver’s license is expired. My checking account doesn’t balance. And I’m having a bad hair day.” I looked at her and said, “Well, you just must not be living right.” We both laughed. We both really didn’t think that God gives people bad hair days for not living right. But there was a time when people thought that way. Throughout much of the O
The Feminine Side of God
Throughout our season of Lent we have the opportunity to consider how God has outstretched her almighty arm and has brought her children to safety … how she has blessed us with gifts too numerous to count … how she has forsaken the rich and haughty and how she has lifted up the lowly into her loving and protective arms. I suspect what you may be thinking. Those feminine pronouns I have just used to speak of the almighty are like speed bumps in your easy listening. “She?” “
Wilderness Temptation
Who was it that has said that we don’t have the privilege of living our lives backwards. If we lived our lives backwards we could see all the things we could change and prepare for them. But as it is, we live our lives forwards, and sometimes it is not until we get past a certain point that we can look back and see where we have been and where God has been in our lives. We are at the edge of a figurative wilderness, you and I. This is the first Sunday in Lent. We have a m
Transfiguration
I can readily understand why Peter, John, and James chose not to tell anyone what they had seen on the mountain that day. No one would have believed them. They probably weren’t even sure, themselves, what they had seen. T was really all kind of bizarre. They had gone up the mountain with Jesus to pray, but ended up falling asleep. All of a sudden they were awakened to see Jesus standing before them in some kind of strange translucent light talking with Moses and Elijah.