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Alice Townley Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 10:00 AM We started reading the book of Mark at the beginning of Advent in late November, and we are just now finishing chapter 1. This chapter is full. Mark says in effect, “Let me introduce you to Jesus, the one who prays, calls disciples, and heals.”
Rob Carlson Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:00 AM Confucianism is one of the most influential religions in the world. There are some 6 million adherents world-wide. It is not, however, one of the five recognized religions in the modern empire known as the Republic of China. At least part of the reason is because Confucianism in China is in the air that people breathe. It has shaped Eastern thought and practice for centuries.
Rob Carlson Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 10:00 AM Devout Jews at the time of Jesus would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at least once a year. Most common was to make the journey near the time of Passover, but whenever the journey was made, it was completed on the steps leading up into the Temple itself, coming near to the Holy of Holies, the place where God was said “to dwell.” The journey itself was a reminder that, as the Passover liturgy says, “my father was a wandering Aramaean.” The father who wandered was both your earthly, biological father, and your Heavenly Father, the God who “tented” with Israel during Israel’s many wilderness wanderings.
Rob Carlson Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 10:00 AM The great Hindu sage of the 19th century, Ramakrishna, told a fable about a motherless tiger cub who wandered out of the jungle, nearly starved to death. The cub was adopted and nursed back to health by goats and brought up by them so that this young tiger acted in almost every way like a goat. Knowing no other mother or siblings, the tiger walked like a goat, ate like a goat, and sounded like a goat.
Alice Townley Sunday, January 1, 2012 at 10:00 AM When the angel Gabriel visited Mary and announced that she would bear a son that would be called the Son of God, and of his kingdom there would be no end; Mary wondered, “How is this possible?” Gabriel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of God will fill you. For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1)
Then Gabriel left, and Mary was pregnant. I imagine Mary repeated those words of Gabriel like a mantra, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” I also imagine that, she sometimes wondered. Would anyone believe this baby was special? Would she be stoned before she could even carry him to term? Would Joseph leave her? He thought he could leave quietly, and then he had that dream. The time of birth neared, and then the demand for a census and a tax and such a long walk to Bethlehem. Could she do it? They arrived, and the time came for her to deliver. There was no upper room available. So there, where the people and the animals dwelt, she labored, and finally, Jesus was born. Mary swaddled him with strips of cloth, rags, and laid him in the manger, the animals’ watering hole. She could do today, barely, but what about tomorrow? The holy family teetered between the impossible and the possible.