What are we to make of Jesus not doing deeds of power due to the lack of belief of the people in his hometown of Nazareth? Just prior to this scene in Mark’s Gospel, we encounter stories of extraordinary healing miracles that include pleas for help. Jairus begs Jesus to heal his daughter. The woman with a hemorrhage boldly reached out for Jesus and
I have learned more about wound care in the last several months than I ever wanted to know. Among the things I’ve learned: sometime in the last few decades, surgeons realized that sewing up all their incisions didn’t always work out. For one thing, it can make it tougher to treat infection and can even increase the odds infection will occur. So when they
Lord, God, our Father, we thank you that here with each other we can call on you and listen to you. Before you, we are all equal. You know the life, thoughts, path, and heart of each of us, down to the smallest and most hidden detail, and before your eyes none is righteous, no, not one. But you have not forgotten, rejected or
Déjà vu, all over again: “I wonder who that masked man was?!” Two stories of mistaken identity. No, worse: of hindered recognition! In Genesis 43, famine has struck. Joseph’s brothers journey to buy corn from the Pharoah, as there are supplies still in Egypt. They’ve already made one successful trip; however they failed to notice that their benefactor, Pharoah’s #1 Man, is … their
Whenever Paul starts writing about sin, many people get squeamish, particularly if they have to read aloud some of his long lists of sins. It feels like there’s something of the Pharisee still lingering in his disposition, even though he preaches that the works of the Law cannot save us. Today’s passage from his letter to the Corinthians, however, opens new insight into his
How can I prepare myself to be “good soil”? Many years ago I worked with a woman I didn’t get along with. I had lots of good reasons to dislike this woman. She made my life miserable and I nursed that resentment for years. Then one day, I realized that the anger I was carrying was hurting me more than it was hurting her.
I like this passage as I do most that reveal the human side of Jesus. Here his ministry clearly is starting to heat up: crowds are thronging and follow him home, his family and many others think he’s crazy, and the Pharisees proclaim he is possessed by the devil. Sounding maybe even a bit peeved, Jesus dismisses the latter with a clever rhetorical flourish
Do we, in Mark’s Gospel passage, witness the most significant and important act of delegation in the history of the world? We see and hear it every day: “Can you assist me with this?” “Can you take something off my plate?” “I’m in the weeds – can you help me out?” It makes our lives – work and personal – more manageable, more tolerable,
Each of today’s readings encourages us to look at the unexamined and repressed. Pharaoh’s dream mystified him because flourishing and withering crops were equally vivid. The Pharisees’ disciplined themselves to worship righteously on the Sabbath and were blind to the need to heal. Paul refused to judge himself good and his neighbor failing because only God could see the whole, the light and the
She was no angel. At 82 she was still beautiful, with elegant hands and a perfect profile. But she was no angel. Her sense of humor could be raunchy and cruel. She pulled people’s strings like a virtuoso. But she loved her children. And she loved her grandchildren. God, not so much. We spoke about God. I shared my faith. She shared her life