The (Lieben)GOOD LIFE

I've been reading through Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith in preparation for some lectures that I will give this semester in a course I teach on Christian vocation. It has been disheartening, illuminating, and motivating all at once. It has been particularly helpful to read this book, written twenty years ago, in our present context of heightened racial tension since the George Floyd, Breona Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery killings, and as evangelical churches are having more discussion about racism in America than in recent history.  It is important to note that this book is a sociological analysis of the way in which white (and in some cases black) evangelicals think about the race problem in America. That is to say that they are not offering a theological prescription for how to deal with our racialized society, nor are they trying to offer a robust way forward.  Rather, they are using the tools of s...

A Homily on Romans 8.12-25 Read with Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43; Genesis 28.10-19a; and Psalm 139.1-12, 23-24   Prayer of Invocation   Father, you are the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those   things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Prayer of Illumination Father, who can discern his errors? Deliver us from our hidden faults; keep us from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over us! May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. (Adapted from Psalm 19.12-14) Proclamation The Spirit is our floodlight and our matchmaker. On our road of darkness He casts light over our shoulders ...

A Homily on Romans 8.1-11 (Read with Psalm 65.1-13; Isaiah 55.10-13; and Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23)   Prayer of Invocation Father, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them by Your Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Prayer of Illumination Father, your word is alive and active; it discerns our thoughts and the intentions of our heart; it interprets us and gives us what cannot provide for ourselves. We ask that You accompany your word with your Spirit;  work in us that which is pleasing in Your sight--enable us to discern and do Your will. Help us to see and know Your love, and help us to know how to live rightly in this world that seeks to divide and devour us; we pray this in the name of Jesus and by the enabling of the Spirit. A...

A Homily on Romans 7.15-25 Read along with Zechariah 9.9-12 ; Psalm 145.8-14 ; Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30   Prayer of Invocation   Father, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another in pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.   Prayer of Illumination   Father, there are so many voices right now clamoring for our attention; there is our own voice that either tells us we are not worthy and that we do not belong, or it tells us we have rights that should be demanded; there are the voices that scream to us about what the good life is, what justice is, who’s right, who’s wrong; voices that seek to shame us; voices that seek to give us false assurance; voices that encourage us to doubt or to be cynical. In this hour...