Perhaps the first thing is to grieve. Before we get angry about the death of coral reefs, the politics that allow the Amazon forests to burn, the economic pressures that are aggravating the coronavirus epidemic. Before we organize to pressure governments and businesses to think about the future and not just the next election or … read more
Advent Meditation: Saturday, December 14, 2019
Psalm 30, 32, 42, 43 • Haggai 2:1-19 • Matthew 24:1-14 Catholicity: the word comes from the Greek for “universal,” or “according to the whole.” The ancient idea that the church of Jesus Christ is catholic is the insistence that the healing, or salvation, that Jesus offers is entirely unboundaried. In the gospel today, when […]
Giving like Poor Radical Widows
This fall, Sowing Holy Question will explore questions of stewardship, reflecting theologically on practical decisions about money, possessions, ecology and our connection to God’s creation. Jesus’s teachings on money can be a little embarrassing. Often it comes in the form of direct address, and this from the master of indirect communication and one-off parable. It’s a […]
Advent Meditations: Saturday, December 15
Psalm 30, 32, 42, 43 • Isaiah 8:1–15 • Luke 22:31–38 Something has changed in Luke 22. The storm that has been gathering is about to break. It is “the hour of darkness,” “the time of trial.” Where Jesus once told his followers to travel lightly and to depend on the hospitality of villagers, now […]
The Enneagram and God’s Future
This past summer, I began exploring the Enneagram, a grid of personality/spirituality types you generally see depicted in that vaguely satanic-looking nine-point star within a circle. I’ve heard about it from students and colleagues over the years, and I decided it was time to see for myself. I read Chistopher Heurtz’s helpful book The […]
Advent Meditations- Wednesday, December 13
<<Return to Advent Meditations page Psalm 38; 119:25-48; Amos 8:1-14; Matt. 23:1-12; Rev. 1:17-2:7 “He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said ‘A basket of summer fruit.’” Alongside the Adventide expectation of grace and favor, there comes also the promise of God’s judgment on injustice. Do we notice, as the prophets and psalmists […]
On Looking Again
C.S. Lewis once said that if we could really see another person—any other person—as God sees her and made her to be, we would be tempted to fall to our knees and worship her as a god. From a classical Christian point of view, that is not hyperbole. Jesus reminded the Pharisees of the […]
Laughter at Lent
It’s Ash Wednesday morning as I write these words, and in a few hours I will hear myself and others invited “to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” What are we denying and negating, when we choose […]
ADVENT MEDITATIONS – MONDAY, DECEMBER 19
Psalm 61, 62; Isaiah 11:1-9; John 5:30-47 Listen to the author read their meditation and prayer: Dr. Anthony D. Baker, Advent Meditation “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” The 62nd Psalm reads as if spoken by one on the edge of lost hope. The world is alive with assault, falsehood, and […]
Truthfulness in a Post-Truth Age
I’m not sure if one can win a prize for guessing the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year. Just in case that’s not a thing, I want some virtual fist bumps for calling it this time. The word of 2016 is “post-truth.” And I called it. No, seriously. I promise I did. Cross my […]