We invite you, in these hard days, to step away for a long weekend of replenishment through bible study, workshops, art, song, worship, ritual, campfires, imagining of new worlds, and the flowering beauty of the Pocono mountains in the spring.
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…
 Last Friday was the Feast of La Virgen de Guadalupe. At right is a retablo, a hybrid style of indigenous artistry, centuries of Catholic iconography, and Spanish culture. Retablos are small oil paintings on tin, zinc, wood, or copper which were used in home altars to honor saints.  This one has hung in our…
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…
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…
17th Sunday after Pentecost (10/5/25): Lk 17:5-10 This week’s blog will be brief, as the next two Sundays call on texts in Lk 17 which I don’t really exposit in HARP. However, the RCL gospel for this week has a key connection to Luke’s narrative of Sabbath Economics. The famous “mustard seed faith” saying promises…
16th Sunday after Pentecost (9/28/25): (Lk 16:19-31) Ten years ago, our Communications Coordinator Chris Wight taught me the acronym “TL;DR”—“too long; didn’t read.” As a writer who tends toward (and is admittedly constrained by) longer-form reflection, I’ve always found that a bit snarky. But I also understand that in a world inundated by all manner…
Lk 12:49-56 is a bit of a head scratcher, at least from a narrative point of view. But it is part of the final section of an extended teaching cycle—the longest uninterrupted discursive series in the Third Gospel.
This week I am commenting on Lk 12:22-34, a keystone teaching that has been marginalized in the lectionary (Sunday’s RCL gospel is 12:32-40). By skipping over it, the RCL cuts out the heart of Jesus argument following on the 8th Sunday’s story of the rich farmer.
This reflection on the Lord’s Prayer highlights its transformative significance in teaching believers persistent prayer for divine justice and community cooperation. It stresses understanding its biblical roots beyond mere recitation, connecting sin and debt, and emphasizes the call for mutual aid under God’s covenant. The Prayer serves as a vital directive for ongoing discipleship.