A House for All Nations (Mark 11:15-17)

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.'” Mark 11:15-17

In AD 165, a terrible plague hit the Roman Empire that lasted for fifteen years. Some historians think it was smallpox, but whatever the cause it was devastating. Perhaps a quarter or more of the population died. A hundred years later another plague hit Rome, with similar results. Bodies were piled up in the streets, some being thrown there before people actually died. Thousands abandoned the cities for the countryside in an attempt to escape the pestilence.
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The King Rides a Colt (Mark 11)

Each Wednesday until Easter I am posting a Lenten reflection, excerpted and adapted from Mark Through Old Testament Eyes.

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.” . . . When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. (Mark 11:1-2, 7-8)

Why does Jesus specify a colt, and one that no one has ridden before? Animals without defect, or which had never been worked before, were considered holy–necessary for worship and sacrifices (Lev 22:19-25; Num 19:2-3; Deut 21:1-9). Animals which had never worked before were specified to pull one of Israel’s holiest objects, the ark of the covenant, after it had been taken by the Philistines (1 Sam 6:1-9).
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The Ministry of Spiritual Grandparenting

Note: This guest blog is by Phyllis Le Peau, someone I’ve known quite well for over forty years. It was recently published in “The Well.” The topic is one dear to both of us, as are our thirteen grandchildren.

Andy and I had some concerns when our first child was born. Our children would be the fourth

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generation of Christians in our family. In situations like that, faith can become merely part of the family surroundings and culture — something that doesn’t sink deep at a personal or conscious level. It can just be background music. As people grow and change, they often leave their parents’ values and practices behind. Faith can seem unnecessary or optional. We wondered if that would happen to us.

Now that we have grandchildren, the same questions arise for the fifth generation — but with an additional twist. What role do we have, or does any older family member have, for children who are not our own but for whom we care deeply?

Our Family’s Story

Let me tell you the story of my own grandmother.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Lincoln’s Startling Conclusion

I remember visiting the Lincoln Memorial and being amazed by the Second Inaugural engraved on the North interior wall. Did the builders really know what it said? For a country that says it separates church and state, Lincoln provided perhaps the deepest theological reflection by any U.S. politician, and something far deeper than that of many theologians.
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The Human Story of a Man-Made Disaster

I remember driving in the south and southwest during the late 1950s and early 1960s on family vacations. We’d see rows and rows of tall, narrow trees (many probably being tower poplar) planted between fields. “Why did they do that?” I asked my parents. They were windbreaks, they told me, used to stop the soil from blowing away like it did in the great black, rainless storms of twenty-five years before.
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A New Spiritual Classic

Centuries ago Brother Lawrence wrote the spiritual classic The Practice of the Presence of God. There that monk taught us to be aware that God is with us in each moment, even when performing such mundane tasks as working in the kitchen or cleaning a floor. In Liturgy of the Ordinary Tish Warren has provided us with such a classic for our day.

From

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waking to brushing teeth to making phone calls to getting into an argument to going to sleep at night, she opens to us how we live each moment in God’s presence. These gifts of repeated patterns or recurring events in our lives offer us the opportunity to see God’s grace in each moment and give thanks for his gifts when life is hard and when it is good.

The

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spirit this book creates is wise, warm, encouraging and at the same time very honest. It is neither sugarcoated nor moralistic. We don’t find do’s and don’ts. Rather, in this Christianity Today Book of the Year, we find a winsome invitation to join our day to God’s.

While the book uses the motif of liturgy to frame the book, readers certainly don’t need to come from or be familiar with the liturgical tradition to benefit from this. Instead it provides fresh dimensions for and expands our appreciation of Immanuel, God with us.

The Social Animal

“We are not who we think we are.”

In The Social Animal, David Brooks tells the story of a composite American couple Erica and Harold, from their first moments of life to their last. Weaving in and out of this tale of their early childhood, high school years, career highs and lows, and the opportunities and challenges of aging, Brooks offers insights from recent research in a variety of fields which provide a new understanding ourselves.
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“And Tell the Truth. Tell the Truth.”

In a day of fake news, alternative facts, and politicians regularly not just massaging the truth but fabricating it to their own benefit, the work of George Orwell seems like it was written in response to today’s news. The writer best known for 1984 and Animal Farm was adamant in his opposition to what he called newspeak–any doublespeak using convoluted and pretentious language to conceal the truth.
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Why Doesn’t Mark Tell the Christmas Story? (Part 2)

Isn’t Mark a bit of a Scrooge for not including the story of Jesus’ birth in his gospel? Really! No star in the east. No angels touching their harps of gold. No little town of Bethlehem. What a grump! And what’s up with beginning with John the Baptist preaching repentance? Does that sound like Christmas? I submit that it does not!
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