church ⁽³⁹⁵⁾

Matthew 18:15–20; Luke 5:23–32 There is nobody beyond God’s redemptive reach. No one. No matter what a person has done or how “unclean” they may be, God is still there waiting. Tax collectors were not well appreciated. We generally are scornful of the IRS. The…

Matthew 20:20–28; Matthew 22:15–22 The author Robert Heinlein once wrote, “When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.” There has been a transformation in our society…

Matthew 16:13–17; Romans 10:6–14 In the US, individuality is all the rage, and it has been since at least 4 July 1776. Individuality is not a bad thing, automatically. While there are many aspects to our faith that are indeed communal (and must remain that…

Jeremiah 17:9–11; Luke 12:1–12 If you have a smartphone, you are probably aware of this little program installed on it, which is supposedly an assistant. “Hello, Google, Siri, Bixby, Alexa.” This program can be helpful. Yet, there is often weirdness associated with it. There have…

Ecclesiastes 1:10–11; Matthew 23:25–32; Luke 11:47–54; Acts 7:44–58 You have probably heard George Santayana’s famous quip, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Perhaps the writer of Ecclesiastes phrased it differently. The reality is that human behavior (especially, selfishness, greed,…