Today, Ash Wednesday 2021, marks a strange anniversary for me. For it was one (liturgical) year ago that I first wrote here about 2020 shaping up to be a brutal year. And so to me at least, it genuinely feels like a marker of one year of this collective experience of struggle. As I reflected … Continue reading Into the Depths: A Reflection for Ash Wednesday, 2021
We're at the point in the liturgical year when the calendar is moving very quickly. Over just the past ten weeks or so we've zoomed through the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, and we're now just three days before the start of Lent. And, in those churches which follow the common lectionary, that means … Continue reading Hearts Unveiled
Sometimes the Scriptures are a goad, a spur that drives us to the work we are called to do. We've had a lot of that the past few months: a consistent message to wake up and do the work of justice and love. Other times, however, the Scriptures are a balm to soothe to soul. … Continue reading …To Those Who Wait (A Reflection on Isaiah 40.21-31)
There's a great scene in a classic episode of The Simpsons in which Homer, having been chosen to go into space as an 'every-man', breaks an ant farm, sending the ants everywhere in the zero-gravity environment. One of the ants, panicking, screams, "Freedom! Horrible horrible freedom!" It's a line that comes to my mind often, … Continue reading The Freedom to Love: A Reflection on 1 Corinthians 8.1-13
One of the major themes that comes out in the Sunday readings for Epiphany season this year is that of calling, or vocation. In fact, it is the theme of the readings from the Hebrew Bible and Gospels both last week and this week. Because vocation is something I think about a lot, I thought … Continue reading According to God’s Purpose: Four Calling Narratives
Matthew Root 