Author: Patrick Clark

Lectionary: 94 Jeremiah 20:10—13 Psalm 69 Romans 5:12—15 Matthew 10:26—33   What is it that makes us most afraid: pain, suffering, and loss, or the possibility of their future occurrence? What is it that makes children afraid to go into a dark room alone, even if that room happens to be their own? Could it be that what makes us most afraid is the combination of our abiding knowledge that we are vulnerable to suffering together with our ignorance of when that suffering might come upon us, where it might come from, and what it might mean? There is little...

Lectionary 34 Ezra 37:12—14 / Psalm 130 / Romans 8:8—11 / John 11:1-45 A colleague of mine once received a student’s paper on the theme of resurrection which began: “I am aware of two chief instances of resurrection: that of Jesus Christ, and that of zombies. Since zombies are not mentioned in the Bible, this paper will deal solely with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” It was funny, but it was also woefully underinformed. The student clearly did not remember the three accounts in the gospels where Jesus raises an individual from the dead: the raising of Jairus’ daughter in Matthew 9,...

The otherness of John the Baptist, his wildness, was regarded as a sign of a privileged perspective on the intentions of the One whose thoughts and ways are so different from our own. Like the prophets before him, he was “set apart,” and heedless of the boundaries and obligations of the status quo.