The Bruised Reed

He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the...
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Worship in a Culture of Death

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips (Psalm 16:4). What is meant exactly by the above verse is not entirely clear. Were the drink offerings to other gods literally of...
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Learning to See

  Do you see this woman? (Luke 7:44).   In the Gospel lesson cited above there are three people. There is the woman, “a woman of the city, who was a sinner,” a woman who wept at the feet of Jesus, and anointed him there. Then there is Simon. Presumably a law-abiding...
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Press On

  And the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus” (1 Kings 19:15a). It’s a bad day when one is called to be a prophet. Isaiah was sent to an unresponsive people (Isaiah 6:9-10). Jeremiah was told he would face stern opposition, God warning...
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When Questions Confuse

Galatians 1:11-24 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace… (Galatians 1:15). The Collect for last Sunday is as follows: O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by...
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What We Refuse to Know: Mark 11:27-33

  So they answered Jesus, “We do not know” (Mark 11:33). Sometimes we don’t know things because we don’t know them. Sometimes we don’t know things because we don’t want to know them. Sometimes we trifle with the things that we should take most seriously. The Pharisees ask...
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Can a Nation Repent? Jonah 3:1-10

  When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it (Jonah 3:10).   Two things we know. First, that over 50 million babies have been legally killed in the womb in the last...
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A Breaking and Healing Word

Genesis 1:1-5, Psalm 29 The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice (Psalm 29:4).   Genesis 1 and Psalm 29 are tremendously hopeful passages. In Genesis, the earth is dark and chaotic, and the Lord speaks. And he speaks again, and again, and again. And, as he does so, this...
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What belongs to God?

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21).    One of the things that many of us may not appreciate sufficiently is Jesus’ mind. His toughness and his tenderness are readily apparent in the Gospels, but that Jesus is...
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Abortion and the Power of Fear

Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him (Exodus 32:1). Idolatry is a serious sin—the most serious sin—in the Bible. But what is it? Why would Israel, having been...
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