I am so thankful to Fred Pena for bringing Samuel Mockbee to our attention. When the saints series was originally conceived, I had in mind people who had some direct impact on who we are as a church. My thinking has since changed for the better. There are so many who labor out there in the world, who are doing …
St. Johnny Cash
Perhaps more than any other person we have canonized, Johnny Cash exemplifies what we mean by saint. Not that he was a pure, moral, and good person; he was not. But integral to sainthood is the hagiography, the story of the saint that we tell. We know they are not entirely true, but we tell them because we are really …
St. Rachel Carson
This week we continue our canonization of the saints. Don’t be distracted by that Pope guy trying to steal our thunder. We totally came up with this idea first! One of the joys this year has been the engagement of the community. Several of our saints are on the list because of the passion of people other than me. That …
St. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
This Sunday begins our annual canonization of the saints. Now for the explaining of the rules and the making of the disclaimers. Candidates must have been dead for five years and they must have performed miracles. In our understanding, a miracle is when the world is pushed off of the track it was on, knocked out of its orbit, so …
Christ-Sophia
A Note from the Board: Co-Pastor The first time you came to Church in the Cliff, you probably heard some things you had never heard in church before. I’m not talking about our foul-mouthed taco vendor, our secret Enneagram code words, or the occasional obscure philosopher. I’m talking about Sophia. You’ll hear this term in our welcome and in many …
The Cause of the Poor
Plus: Saints 2016 Y’all may have noticed that I’m not great at details or schedules. That makes following the lectionary a danger zone for me, so I keep telling you we’re going to talk about things that, it turns out, we are not. I am truly thankful for your grace. This is all said to preface the news that we …
Song of Songs: NSFW
Well, I said we were going to start talking about wisdom literature, but it turns out that’s not quite right. It would have been more accurate to say we are going to talk about the Solomonic corpus, books that are attributed to Solomon. Of course, it is likely that little to none of these books was actually written by Solomon, …
The Listening Heart
There’s always a sequel. Last week, we brought the story of David to a close, but this week we see his son, Solomon, take the throne. We’ll spend a couple of weeks with Solomon and then move into some wisdom literature. So maybe it’s more a coda than a sequel. You may recall that Solomon chose wisdom from God and …
Absalom, Absalom! The Original
I wish I were a more literary person. To my regret and my enduring hope for the future, I have not read the classics, the great works of Shakespeare, or much of the great literature of the 20th century. I suspect that if I did I could make all kinds of comparisons with the stories of David. It is an …
A Love Story
This will be another challenging week. Yet again, we will gather in the wake of a mass shooting. We are told once again that it is too soon to talk about gun control, too soon to talk about politics. We know that it is statistically likely that next week will witness another mass shooting and the clock will be reset …