My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? – James 2:1 There was once a seminarian who conducted an experiment. The seminarian wondered what the Bible would look and sound like if he took out every single text regarding ‘the poor’ in the whole Bible. The seminarian set about his task, and as Jim Wallis describes in his book God’s Politics, it took the seminarian a very long time. Barely a book of the Bible went by where … [Read more...]
Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost
"...you hypocrites..." A lot of scripture is metaphoric, symbolic. Some of it isn't. "...their religion is worthless." "...you hypocrites..." In addition to not being terribly metaphoric, these words are about individuals, as well as collective communities. The ancient world had little concept of individuality in the way we understand it. It's hard for us to understand such a collective reality, and sometimes we misunderstand scripture because of that. Here, however, with James and … [Read more...]