Author: Patrick Clark

Gospel justice is not so much a matter of balancing scales as it is rightly ordering attachments.

Lectionary: 129 Wisdom 9:13-18b Psalm 90 Philemon 9-10, 12-17 Luke 14:25-33 Beavers are amazing creatures. On a walk around a local reservoir with a few of my kids, I saw the traces of their work all around us: the tell-tale conical-topped stumps and the occasional triangular dent in a tree that turned out to be too big for them to bring down. Their energy must be endless; the marks of their activity were everywhere. We saw the same thing when we were exploring the Snake River a couple summers ago, except then we were actually able to see and...

  Isaiah 66:10—14 Psalm 66 Galatians 6:14-18 Luke 10:1-12, 17-20   The climactic image of the Christian faith is an open entryway. The women who seek to care for Jesus’ body after his death encounter an open tomb, with its stone seal rolled away; and upon crossing the threshold they behold the key circumstance upon which the power of the gospel rests: “He is not here.” The whole of our salvation is in some sense encapsulated by that open entryway: the death which separates us from this world and those we love is unable to separate us from the...

Joshua 5:9a, 10-12 Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 This week’s readings seem to focus on the theme of eating, and particularly the act of shared eating. The first reading serves as a good point of reference for what follows. The Lord withdraws his provision of manna for the people, who are now able to eat “of the yield of the land of Canaan.” Through this act the Lord tells Joshua that He is removing “the reproach of Egypt” from the people. It is a point to start again, to begin a new life in...