A view of a tiffany stained glass window with repeating scale-like tiles in a rainbow pattern, seen from below.

Sermons on Matthew

2nd Peter (1) Acts (4) Genesis (2) Hebrews (1) Isaiah (1) Jeremiah (1) Job (1) John (3) Luke (6) Matthew (2) Ruth (1)

  • What is God like?

    What is God like?

    Matthew 28.16–20; 2 Peter 1:16–18

    I can’t help but wonder, friends, if the reason we can’t get away from the complexity of the trinity is that we are being called into the same. We are being given the holy mystery of God, revealed in the scriptures that our forebearers have compiled out of six millenia spent triangulating who God is and what God is like. So that we might be taught to be constant seekers, to be constant learners; so that we might never be compelled to think we have all the answers, but instead to hope for all the right questions; and so that we might instead be compelled to go out and humbly offer renewal to all the world around us.

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  • The shadows of sent-out ones

    The shadows of sent-out ones

    Matthew 22.23–33; Acts 5.12–16

    At Bible Study on Tuesday, I was touched by how quickly folks caught on to what’s unique about this passage: the hypothetical in this story is not just a hypothetical about resurrection. It is a hypothetical that pre-supposes a patriarchal world where a woman’s job is to bear an heir for a man—even a deceased man to whom she is no longer married!—at just about any cost, even if it means being transferred from husband to brother-in-law to brother-in-law seven times over, like a family recipe book or trading card collection or something. Like property.

    Read more: The shadows of sent-out ones