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The Lord Needs It: Lessons From A Donkey

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This Sunday is Palm Sunday---the beginning of Holy Week. It's also one of those Sundays when you can't ignore the church calendar and just preach whatever you want.  I am sure that some people do just that, but they probably aren't Presbyterian, and I am sure that the liturgical rhythm of the Church is not first and foremost in their mind. And they probably have had no trouble at all working on their sermon this week. I'm not one to blindly follow tradition, but there are some things that you just don't do---and you can't just ignore  the story of Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.   But this leads to a bit of a quandary...  In the short time I have been doing this whole preaching thing I have gone through the Palm Sunday story a few times.  After a while you sort of wonder if your congregation has heard your Palm Sunday riff a few too many times. That sermon needs to get preached, though.  While we celebrate the cheers and pal
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You & Who You Are: Rob Bell on Identity & Transition

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"Before you say 'no,' you have to say 'yes." With this provocative and confusing statement, Rob Bell began a talk on Identity to a roomful of learners---mostly pastors and church leaders---at his recent 2Days With Rob Bell event in Laguna Beach, CA. Then he shared a parable... It seems a first century rabbi was journeying home late from a dinner in a nearby village.  There was a fork in the road that led to his village.  If he went left, he would find himself at a Roman military outpost.  If he went right he would find his way home.  It was dark and he had drunk a bit of wine and he inadvertently took the left fork.  Some time later he found himself at the wall of the outpost.  A Roman guard called out to him, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"  The rabbi didn't answer.  "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"  The rabbi called back to the soldier, "How much are they paying you to do this?"  The guard was sil
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Rapha & Yada - "Be Still & Know": Reimagined

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One of the most well-used verses in the Bible comes to us from Psalm 46:10, which reads like this:  He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth.” That one line---"Be still, and know that I am God"---finds its way into greeting cards, wall art, church signs and the like.  And it sounds so nice, doesn't it?  But what does it actually mean ? What does it mean to be still  and know  that God is God?  Well, to dig deeper into that phrase to see what it's really saying, I'm going to have to bust out some Hebrew--so, don't hold it against me. The Hebrew word that's used here for the phrase "be still" is the word  rapha. And get this... It means "to hang limp, sink down, be feeble."  That's a heckuva lot different than what we usually take the phrase "be still" to mean, right? I don't know about you, but whenever I have heard that verse
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