Judges 4:1-9, 12-24 I want to take a moment, first, to revel in the beauty of a good revenge story. Here we have the King Jabin and his General Sisera. (This Jabin with a b, totally etimologically unrelated to our own Javan.) Together, Jabin and Sisera anchor an oppressive regime. Read more…
Elizabeth Reimer and Zack Begly, two Goshen College students who are advocating within the Mennonite Church for a greater engagement with mass incarceration and its impact in the U.S. wrote a proposed resolution for the 2021 Mennonite Convention–read it here–and discussed it with Shalom in this weeks message.
Matthew 5:38-42Matthew 14:13-21Matthew 17:24-27 I would like to begin this morning with a reading from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. If you’d like to follow along, it begins on the bottom of page 132 or so in your pew copy, depending on your translation. [This is the scene Read more…
The common housefly, Musca Domestica, has lived alongside humans for as long as we have been human. We regard these creatures as pests. And with good reason, for although their living alongside us is commensal offering neither benefit nor harm directly, they are significant vectors of both disease and filth. Read more…
I wish I had a worry-o-dometer to step on each morning, like a scale, because as the election gets closer, I don’t know if I’m gaining weight, but I am gaining worry. So I’ve written a few notes about what I’m feeling, mostly notes to self. I’m curious, in our Read more…
We all deal with teenage angst in different ways. I managed by recording mixtapes from the radio and reading Jeremiah 12 obsessively. The mixtapes—which were, quite literally, tapes, have not survived the test of time, but the Bible has. Jeremiah writes: “You will be in the right, O God, when Read more…
by: John Powell My mother was a ‘no non-sense’ kind of person. So, when I would her saying loudly, “John Hayes, you git in here now!”, I knew I was in trouble! During my civil rights activity years, I was sure that I would get summoned before her again. But Read more…
I’m going to begin this morning with a confession. I’ve had a hard week. Most of you know that five years ago I was a successful academic with an elite position in my hometown. 2016 was a brutal year for me as I lost that work and entered what would Read more…
Emily Miner Last week Shelly asked me to share more about my experience presenting on racism in medicine to the anesthesia department at my institution. I thank each of you for the support you offered to me as I prepared for that. This week as I have been working on Read more…