Always and Ever Present

“The holy roller-coaster” is a handle I give to my Old Testament students to set the history of Israel clearly in mind. Spread across some 1500 years, that history has four peaks of great favor separated by three calamities for the whole people. As this undulating wave forms on a blackboard on the first day of class, I often ask my students what the big picture calls to mind. “A roller-coaster” says one. Eventually, from a deeper place, someone says: “My life.”

Two Tribes in Your Belly

We are going to hear a number of stories from Genesis in the coming weeks. They tell like one cliff-hanger after another . . . where survival is imperiled. We are old, we are few, they say; we are barren and famished, flanked by enemies, and hating our own brother. Are we going to make it out of here into the future?

The Tempter’s Gift

When is temptation temptation? Is it when someone plans to sway you to do a thing which would turn you from your path? This is the cartoon we continually conjure about temptation—an evil spirit clad all in red, intending harm. But this is foolishness, or worse, for no one sure where his happiness lies is tempted by persuasions. Is it when we fall from our path, when we know that what we are about to do is not right, but we do it anyway? That is another cartoon diversion from seriousness . . .

The Jesus Game

Let us turn to the city of Corinth, A.D. 50. What news? Bad news. The church of Christ has been behaving badly from the beginning. There is a good news side to this bad news, however. The fact that we tell the story that then and now and throughout history, our churches have failed to grasp their purpose proves that some ships have been righted from grave wrongs and sailed on after the storms, guarding their treasures and handing them on for the living. That, and only that, is what is worthy in a tradition.