One of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories is about a grandfather who takes his grandson, Nelson, to Atlanta to show him by comparison how good it is in the country. A visit to the city will cure him of his boredom with rural Georgia. Arriving on the train, they begin to walk and are soon lost. For the whole day they try to find their way back to the station but walk around in circles confused and no closer to the station. The grandfather’s “moral mission” to show the boy how evil, dark and unwelcoming the city is takes an unexpected turn but in the end they find the train home…

I don’t know another passage of Genesis with which I have wrestled more than this one. That’s good for you to know at the outset because you can relax and not be thinking I am going to resolve all the questions about this account. In some ways, I am like Jacob.  I come into it with fear and trembling and leave it limping. But, because it is such a central part of Jacob’s journey from the deceiver to the father of the twelve tribes of Israel we don’t have any choice. Many stories, like this one, are told to explain something. Almost all of Greek mythology is composed of stories…

Weddings are typically beautiful events with the music, candles, glamorous bride and handsome groom. Receptions, especially those with jumbo cold boiled shrimp, are festive and seeing the happy couple off to Maui just completes the picture. That does not describe this wedding. In fact, had there been the ritual invitation for someone to stand up and object, this would have been the time. Certainly, it was love at first sight for Jacob and Rachel. “When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and…

 We hear so much talk about transitions today.  People are in transition from careers to retirement.  The balance of power in the world is shifting from West to East. The economy is in transition from making things to knowledge and accumulating data for sale. Religion is in transition from believers to nones. Education is in transition from campus-based to online. Brick and mortar is over and everything about physical place has moved to the web. Well, Jacob was in transition from the certain world of home in Beersheba to the uncertain world of a strange place he had never been and a family he had never known.  As well, he was…

Stories about our origins are always stories about ourselves and our unique characteristics. Most tend to highlight the good and play down the flaws.  We airbrush history and our forefathers. You really have to dig around in the history books to read about the darker sides of Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Lincoln. It is almost impossible to find any stories about Washington that make him fully human.  He is a complete enigma even to those who knew him well. “Adams fumed in his diary, Franklin sparkled in his anecdotes, Jefferson agonized in his treatises, and Hamilton bristled with passion in his letters. Washington resisted any urge he may have had…

When Catherine was small I had to use a local clinic for something or other. I don’t even remember. What I do remember is this. I went into the doctor’s office and when he saw my motorcycle helmet he said, “Do you have a wife or child?” I said, I did and he said, “No one on a motorcycle in an accident with a car escapes without serious life changing injuries.” He then went on to tell me about the variety of motorcycle victims he had treated at the clinic over the years – and then threw in some he had only read about. “If I could tell you one…

When I see the black church pandering to liberal politicians, the Catholic leadership unwilling to correct abuses that have been going on for ages and the white church prostituting themselves for a picture in the White House, I think about this passage in James. “You adulterous people.” From the beginning the church has been plagued with divisions, betrayal, corruption, greed, ambition, fighting, slander, and chasing after the approval of the world.  It’s only too late we find while we want to be friends with the world the world does not want friends. It wants worship. It wants to take more than it gives and gradually draws us away from friendship…

1.  Let’s look at the first and last verses of this chapter.  They serve as bookends. “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.  We all stumble in many ways.  If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” The chapter is not about gossip…

1.  Sometimes the divisions into chapters interrupts the flow of Paul’s thought and this is, I think, a good example of that. He is not starting a new thought in the first verse of Chapter 6 but continuing what he has been saying in the last several verses of Chapter 5. “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.  Therefore, if someone falls prey to any of these things then those who are walking in step with the Spirit…

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” 1.  This is the struggle we read about in Romans 7:14-8:17.  Paul has the desire to do what is good, but cannot carry it out.  “For what I do is not the good I want to do…So I find this law at work:…