In today’s gospel, the chief priests, scribes, and elders ask Jesus by what authority he is doing these things. Jesus says He will tell them if they will answer one question, did the baptism of John come from heaven or human origin? It is a no-win situation…
My lens to the divine often focuses scripture in a way that is relevant to what I am experiencing on the day that I read it. Today, as I sit in my office at NYU Abu Dhabi, waiting for students to come for counseling sessions, I see this Gospel, filled with very human emotions. Jesus curses the fig tree, turns tables at the temple, and frets about forgiveness.
In today’s Gospel story Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, sits by the road leading out of Jericho. There he hears the commotion of a large crowd approaching and is told that Jesus is coming. He cries out, “Jesus … have mercy on me!” Some in the crowd sternly try to…
In 2 Corinthians 4 we are told to think about God’s light in our hearts shining forth. When we make more and more room for this light by getting rid of the hiding, dishonesty (perhaps most especially…
Be free, though you are bound in a body, and for Christ’s sake show forth obedience in your freedom. But also be prudent in your simplicity, lest you be plundered. Love humility in all your activities, that you be delivered from…
The many sources given to us each day of these Lenten devotions have always caused my mind to boggle, and so after reading each of them over I try to concentrate on two of their thoughts, which are beautiful verse or moral teachings that I can try to remember in my daily life. None of us will be equally moved or uplifted by every word of them, but…
“Who is the Lord that I should heed his voice…?” Pharaoh arrogantly posed this question to Moses and Aaron in the pages of Exodus. Yet one might consider its relevance in our lives today. Throughout the millennia, most of humanity has made their relationship with God at once both ambiguous and ambivalent.
In today’s passage Jesus makes three crucial points. He allows non-disciples to do miracles in His Name declaring: “he who is not against us is for us” and promising a reward to those who help others in His Name; He teaches that whoever desires to be first should be the “servant of all”; and He predicts His death and resurrection. In the first teaching, Jesus states that…
Today’s scripture readings include one of the most familiar and best-loved passages from the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Here Paul focuses on the gift of love, its essential role in our lives, and how it supersedes every other admirable quality we might possess, including…
Paul tells us in I Corinthians that we are “the body of Christ and individually members of it.” God has appointed us different roles: apostles, prophets, teachers, forms of leadership, and others. I contemplate this as we move through 2012. We will be saying goodbye…