    Elaine and I returned a few days ago from a week back east, where we visited beloved elders in New England, then participated in a Public Theology & Public Policy Conference hosted by our friends Bishop William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at Yale Divinity School. It was good to catch up with colleagues we…
Friends:    I first took a retreat at Our Lady of the Redwoods Abbey in Mendocino County, CA in the late 1970s. There I met two Cistercian monks who had deep impact on me. One was Mother Myriam Dardenne (1920–2010) , the first Abbess, who offered me the liberating affirmation that my study of scripture was a form…
PODCASTS: Our friend Ragan Sutterfeld just released an hour-long interview he did late last year with the Ekklesia Project about the Bible, Christian Zionism and the war on Palestine. He talks with Ched and our Canadian colleague Sylvia Keesmaat (right). Check it out here. We’re getting to know young Sabeel activist theologian Thanh Nguyen; Ched…
Feast of Epiphany (January 6th, 2026) Thirty years ago, my then-young Jewish godson dubbed the Christmas season “the days of craze.” He wasn’t wrong: the consumer-industrial complex’s relentless seductive-compulsive huckstering drives us crazy by effectively drowning out the good (if subversive) news of Mary’s Magnificat and angelic pronouncements that God’s sovereignty trumps empire. Sadly, the…
23rd Sunday after Pentecost – Lk 20:45-21:36 I am tardy for this last in my series of blogs on Luke and HARP during this lectionary Year C. I was scrambling to shape this material for a Center & Library for the Bible and Social Justice webinar last night with Chuck Collins (right), a stimulating conversation…
22nd Week after Pentecost, 2025 As we near the end of lectionary Year C and our journey through Luke, we are happy to announce that the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice will host a conversation between Chuck Collins’ and me on Thursday, Nov 13, from 7:30-9 pm EST. Chuck’s Burned by…
Lk 18:35-19:28: 21st Sunday after Pentecost Jesus concluded the twinned teaching of Lk 18:1-14 (the last two Sunday’s readings) by reiterating his pronouncement from 14:11: “The exalted will be brought down, and the humbled lifted up” (18:14b). This both looks back to Mary’s Magnificat (1:52), and forward to this Sunday’s gospel: the story of Zacchaeus…
And Honoring Two Departed Saints; 20th Sunday after Pentecost, 2025 The parable that follows the Persistent Woman and the Unjust Judge similarly indicts elites (Lk 18:9–14), this time targeting those who justify their privilege with religious presumption and disguise their predatory power with public piety. It thus strikes closer to home for those of us…
I love how this parable disrupts our still heavily male-focused culture by celebrating and centering the agency of women—thus my subtitle “Hersistence”! There is so much in which to delight in this story of the tenacious prayer and public resistance of this unnamed protagonist, who is truly a great ancestor of women’s personal and political…
And Re-introducing Two Timely BCM Publications18th Sunday after Pentecost This Sunday’s RCL gospel reading (Lk 17:11-19) is a straightforward object lesson about gratitude for gifts of healing. It is an important reminder for those of us trying to face and heal deep wounds past and present, not least in this fraught historical moment. As we…