The distillation of Torah in the Sermon on the Mount recorded by Matthew portrays Jesus as the second Moses, seated on the mountainside, calling all earnest disciples into alignment with God’s...

The interweaving of the impact of human choices with God’s creating and un-creating activities is evident in today’s passage. The psalmist briefly draws on imagery from the Noah story: “The LORD...

Psalm 107 opens with a Hebrew imperative, ho¯du¯! (“Hey, everyone, let’s give thanks!”) Why? Because YHWH is good and faithful. How can I be sure that God is good? The fact...

In today’s reading, Matthew presents a comic scene in which Jesus bests the religious experts and shows the limitations of any narrow, literal reading of scripture. In the part we discussed...

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is perceived as a threat by the Pharisees. They confront him with question after question designed to stump and discredit him. Jesus, of course, is well versed...

“They will know we are Christians by our love.” I think about this line often and wonder what folks would think if they only had one interaction with me. Would they...

I have a colleague who would end her emails with this invitation in her signature: Make it count! In a way, that is also the invitation to us in this portion...

As the daughter of a United Methodist pastor, the concept of home and dwelling has come to mean for me less about land and place and more about people. Our family...

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic led us into our own time of wilderness wandering and wondering. As we experienced the shutting down and reopening of our places of worship, work,...

I am not much of a hiker, but the trails I have explored here in the Pacific Northwest have stirred in me wonder and awe. Reading the first verse of today’s...