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As I read Micah 5:2-5a, the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” comes to mind. The lyrics, written by Phillips Brooks in 1868, were inspired by his nighttime visit on horseback in 1865 to (...)

Luke 2:1–14, the Narrative Lectionary’s reading for Christmas Eve, presents the birth of a child to an unassuming couple in an unusual place. I suggested in the commentary for that text that Luke presents the (...)

The long career of environmental lawyer James Gustave Speth has taken him into governmental and intergovernmental leadership, academia, and many years of nonprofit environmental advocacy. His newest book, They Knew: The US Government’s Fifty-Year Role (...)

The season of Advent is a sticky-note reminder to the church: God is doing a new thing. Again. The Gospel texts for these four weeks run in reverse narrative order, starting near the end of (...)

On texts for Oct. 17, 2021 | Ordinary 29 | RCL Year B It’s easy to chastise James and John for their tone-deaf request of Jesus. Mark makes it hard not to. We all know (...)

Jews mark the end of the yearly Torah cycle with the wonderful holiday of Simchat Torah, “Joy in the Torah.” They take the huge Torah scrolls out of the ark and dance with the scrolls. (...)

Daniel 12:1–3 has become one of the touchstones of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. To begin on any other note would probably ignore the interests of readers of a Christian lectionary commentary. In some (...)

The reading for this week from Hebrews 7:23–28 provides a summary of a rather important discussion from the author of Hebrews. Prior to this selected text, the author goes to great lengths to explain how (...)

Mark continues here with a series of teachings that seek to lay out how the prospective community should organize its structure, particularly around governance issues. At a fundamental level, the questions are: What criteria should (...)

Does it matter to know God’s name? For a child who grows up in a religiously homogeneous community, God might not need a name other than “God” (especially if it is believed that there is (...)