The crowds were slowly leaving Jerusalem. The great festival of freedom was over. Wonderful Passover! Once again they’d gathered to feast at the meal of remembrance, tell the story of Israel’s escape from slavery in Egypt, and praise their God. As the city ...

This fourth and last Sunday of Advent is, for all kinds of reasons, a heavily pregnant time. The sights, the sounds, the frantic preparations. There’s the weight of anxiety and fear. There is breathless hope. Advent is a time of waiting, not passively but actively.

John heard voices in his head. It was nothing new. He heard his father’s voice. And his mother’s. He remembered hearing their hushed conversations when he was a tiny boy. He could not understand their words, but he could hear his mother’s soft weeping and his ...

Do you ever browse the internet for a list of this year’s top ten gifts? It’s that time of the year after all. Perhaps you remember the gifts you longed for over the years: the toys of childhood, the technology, music, or clothing of adolescence, ...

Twenty years ago this month an undersea earthquake caused a tsunami event in the Indian Ocean. Fifteen countries were devastated by the tidal waves. Nearly a quarter of a million people died. Among those who experienced the greatest loss of life was Indonesia. A ...

Psychic or psychotic? It’s a legitimate question to ask about Daniel. Are we hearing the disintegration of a mind in terrible distress? Daniel’s visions were set in perilous times, reflecting trials ranging from the Babylonian deportation of Israel to Greek occupation and subjugation under […]

Contrary to both history and popular imagination, Daniel was not a person. Or perhaps we should say, not a particular person. Daniel is the synthesis of an idea, a conviction, a message. Daniel goes a long way back in history. The oldest known writing referring ...

There was a knock at the door and the young woman opened it to find several men standing there. She did not invite them in, for that would have been unseemly. But they only came to bring word to her that her husband had ...

In previous generations they used to say, travel is broadening. Or, as travel expert Rick Steves says, it’s the best education you’ll ever have. It generally follows that the farther afield you go, the more you’ll learn. And in a sense, you never really return.

A book was effectively banned from public access. It happened because religious leaders with strong influence in government thought the book was dangerous. It had been widely available for years and never fell off the list of best sellers because it had everything. Epic battles ...

A baby girl in Spain was born with Down syndrome. In her five brief years of life she was tenderly cared for and greatly loved. An elderly French man lived with a terrible dental condition that left him toothless and with constant painful infections. But ...

In gracious homes with manicured gardens, the people lived. Public spaces were well tended. Cafes were full of happy chatting customers. The markets were bursting with produce and lanes were lined with chic butcher shops. Things were going along so well. And so, it ...

Every now and then a message pops up on the computer screen. It says, Changes have been made that affect the global template. Do you wish to save these changes? This is an alarming question. Because what is the global template? How did it ...

Have you noticed how the crowded the calendar is anymore? Is there any day, week, or month that doesn’t have a commemoration attached to it? It’s hard to keep track of them all, much less remember to honor them. It’s as true in ...

Jonathan Edwards preached a rousing sermon in his Northampton, Massachusetts congregation in 1741. Edwards was a Calvinist revival preacher, skilled in calling sinners to repentance. His sermon was so successful he took it on the road to Enfield, Connecticut. That sermon became ...

After successfully building and running a business, people with an entrepreneurial spirit tend to look for other things to do. Early retirement is always a possibility. But many are still young enough, energetic enough, or driven enough to contribute something more to society. This happened […]

In 1968 a teacher in a small Iowa town shared the tragic news of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. with her class of third graders. The teacher, Jane Elliott, asked them how they would feel about what had happened if they ...

Where exactly do you draw the line? This questions can be heard in two ways. Where is the proverbial line to be drawn? And where do you personally draw the line? In Deuteronomy 4 Moses draws the line for Israel with God’s commandments.

“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding.” Well, that’s helpful. This pithy saying comes from Proverbs 4. It’s reminiscent of those job postings that require experience to get hired. But to get experience you first need to ...

He ran. After Elijah had all of Jezebel’s prophets of Baal killed in the wadi, he ran to inform the citizens of Jezreel of the glorious news. Israel’s God had come at Elijah’s call in a fiery appearance while the Canaanite […]

There’s a worship song called “Dance With Me”. It used to be a favorite at Christian Summer Camps. “This is holy time. We’re gathered together to worship you, to love one another. And as we pray, and as we sing, and as we dance, ...

Families are the place most of us begin to learn. Sometimes by careful verbal instruction. Some things such as tying shoelaces are taught by demonstration. Other things are picked up by observing attitudes of others toward, say, Aunt Iphigenia’s money problems, or Cousin Arthur’s questionable ...

Remember the great Biosphere 2 experiment in Arizona? Whatever happened to that attempt to create an enclosed environment that would mimic earth’s biosphere? Perhaps you remember hearing some differing accounts about its success and its validity as a scientific experiment. Turns out that two ...

Families can be great and they can also be messy. All families have systems by which they operate for better or for worse. Individuals within the family follow patterns that are set early in life without our conscious awareness. Sometimes these are healthy and functional.

We went to the mainland in our little Ford Ranger truck which is approaching a significant birthday. The one where you qualify for a special license plate. The truck, a relic from the town of Friday Harbor’s maintenance fleet has low miles. But things […]

On the other side was some really weird stuff. Actually, just getting to the other side was an adventure. That was last week’s story when Jesus and the Twelve took a boat into a testing storm, emerging safely from it more as a result ...

Around this time of year, graduation happens. Friends who have accompanied one another for years, in some cases since preschool, plan futures that will send them many directions. What makes them friends is a strange and sometimes weird alchemy. Full of promise, joy, and ...

This is the season for allergies. Seems a little worse this year. Is it my imagination, or has it been windier than usual for June? All those little bits of organic matter carried on the wind play havoc with us and what ...

The snake had always been in the garden. That’s important to know. It was not some alien being that made its way in to wreak havoc after the garden had been populated. Not only that, but it’s possible that the serpent had ...

Sometimes you can just tell that Jesus has had enough, right? Like any teacher, or parent supervising energetic children, Jesus knows how fast the interplay can change direction. How quickly God’s children shift from happy play into bitter conflict! So with the […]

I went to have a talk with Jesus. And it didn’t go well. We were alone under the cover of nightfall. A useful thing in those times when being seen with a certain person might not serve your interests very well. But to be honest, ...

A Reflection on the Day of Pentecost in Three Words The first word is Spirit. The spectacular interruption of an ordinary Pentecost harvest festival would never have happened at all if God’s Spirit hadn’t decided to join the fun. Hold that thought – it ...

If you were among the fortunate, you saw the Northern Lights on Friday night. It wasn’t certain they’d be visible. If it had been cloudy no one would have seen a thing. Timing was a factor too. The lights come when they come ...

Some stories you can’t make up. I remember Fred, a retired aeronautical engineer and dairy farmer. He was farming on the Rogue River when Henry and his mate arrived on the farm. They were adult white geese. Very shortly after their arrival Henry’s mate […]

It’s about fifty miles from Jerusalem down to Gaza. But Philip didn’t bat an eye when an angel of God showed up one day and instructed him to go there. He went expeditiously, by way of a wilderness road. About the same time a ...

Many years ago, I lived in close company with sheep and shepherds on the eastern slope of the Colorado Rockies. There were two sheep ranchers in the congregation. I freely admit that I still know very little about sheep. But I […]

Do you remember when Bluetooth first became a thing? It was a little awkward, right? A stranger making no eye contact, in lively conversation with no visible correspondent. What on earth…? This was totally new territory. A person talking to their own self is ...

Just before Easter, many years ago, a beloved church lady (feel free to make your own mental image here) came with an idea. She’d been to a friend’s church and seen their preparations for the resurrection of Jesus – Easter Sunday. She ...

To read Bible verses online click here to get to Biblegateway.com My first real memory of Seattle’s annual Seafair Parade was 1963. The memory is dim, but I recall decorated floats, marching bands, clowns, and candy tossed to the children by […]

To read the Gospel click this link to Biblegateway.com. You would think that Jesus might have spent his last days in quiet contemplation. The cross loomed ahead and going there would take everything he had; all his strength clear to his last ...

To read Mark Chapter 11, click this link from Biblegateway.com It’s a little weird to be reading the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem today. We usually read it the Sunday before Easter. We’re two weeks out from that and perhaps you aren’t quite ...

To read this passage online click this link to Biblegateway.com Chapter 10 is full of familiar gospel stories. In fact, they will come up separately later this year. There is only one story that is left out. And it is this one… Bartimaeus was ...

Mark 8:22 – 9:50 To read this passage online click this link to Biblegateway.com Familiar teachings from Mark 8 and 9 come up later this year. Consider instead, these things… Observations in Mark’s Gospel – Generations There was the Greatest Generation, the Silent generation, the Baby ...

To read this passage online click this link to Biblegateway.com To Walk with Jesus They left their fishing boats, Every hook, line, and net. To walk with Jesus. They didn’t know the way But trusted that Jesus did. Though they had some […]

To read this passage online click this link to Biblegateway.com Today we observe the completion of Epiphany. In this season we hear stories of Jesus being revealed in various ways as God’s beloved son and the world’s savior. It culminates in the ...

Sermon on the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 3 To read this passage online click this link to Biblegateway.com Over the past nine months, members of our One Parish One Prisoner Core Team have been on quite a journey with our friend Andrew. It might […]

From January to mid-March, we are reading the gospel of Mark from beginning to end covering on average a chapter per week. Reflections (sermon, homily or meditation) on the content of each chapter will vary from general to specific. Some weeks there may be ...

As you may know, we follow an ecumenical three-year cycle of bible readings. Gospel readings come from Matthew, Mark, or Luke. John’s gospel has no dedicated ...