Systemic Adultery and Matriphobia: Our Guilty Silence
A Lutheran pastor friend of mine recently posted this status on Facebook: Be sure, before you get defensive, that you understand the difference between individual racism and systemic racism and…
A Lutheran pastor friend of mine recently posted this status on Facebook: Be sure, before you get defensive, that you understand the difference between individual racism and systemic racism and…
“The begats” is a listing of generations from Adam to Noah. It was repetitious and boring. In each generation, it says someone was born, had kids, lived awhile longer and…
What is more common than talk of love? The word is overused. So much love is false. Billy Joel sang truth in “A Matter of Trust”: Some love is just…
“Mom always liked you best.” That was the signature line of the comedy act, the Smothers Brothers. In an interview by PBS, Tommy Smothers recalled how it started. He was…
One year at our farm at Wildrose, we reached the peak in a long period of historically high precipitation. Sloughs ran over. Fields were saturated. Few crops were planted. By…
You have seen a kid like him. One day, he is trying too hard to please everyone. The next, he doesn’t give a rip what anyone thinks. One minute, he…
From a sermon of Martin Luther for Christmas Day, reprinted in Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. I, pp. 181-83 (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, USA: 1983) “And the Word was…
On Christmas Day, heresies begin in earnest. Our desire for self-justification cannot abide the Incarnation. It is a scandal that we should need God to come to us in this…
A sermon of Martin Luther on Luke 2:21-40 is loaded with so many gems it is difficult to select one for consideration here. Two are how Simeon is a preacher…
The Gospel text for January 4 is Luke 2:41-52. After God gives Jesus to Mary, He seems to take him away from her. When she loses him on the return…