This series exploring different biblical metaphors for sin and salvation would be incomplete without looking at the understanding of sin that most readily comes to mind for most of us: sin as infraction, rule-breaking or trespass. This approach understands sin as crossing agreed-upon boundaries. What makes this image interesting theologically is that it doesn't have … Continue reading Law-Breaking and …?
"All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players." These words of William Shakespeare from As You Like It capture well the feeling we all have from time to time that our lives are not our own — that we're all too often caught up in the deep behavioural ruts … Continue reading Jesus and the Problem of Performative Religion: A Reflection on Mark 12.38-44
This series has attempted to normalize 'sin' (without minimizing it) by looking at some of the many ways the idea of sin and its positive counterpart, salvation, are described in the Bible. Each of the images offers a different perspective on what it is that has gone wrong with the human experiment, and therefore a … Continue reading Alienation and Communion
Today, or I should say more properly tonight, is Halloween, the celebration of all that is macabre and ghoulish. It's hard to think of Halloween without envisioning ghosts, with all their associations of unfinished business, and unfilled longing. I'm reminded once again of the Buddhist notion of the 'hungry ghosts', an existential state where those … Continue reading Hunger and Feeding: A Reflection on Halloween and All Saints Day, Isaiah 25, and Sin and Salvation
The Bible starts with the stunning image of God taking a primordial shapeless void and lovingly turning it into the lush green and blue world that we know. Where God is at work, there is life. This is the message of the first chapter of the Scriptures and is the basic premise behind the metaphor … Continue reading Barrenness and Fertility
Matthew Root 