Apprentice 2 Jesus

Lent

  • Setting the oppressed free

    Is not this the fast that I choose:to loose the bonds of injustice,to undo the thongs of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free,and to break every yoke? (Isa. 58:6) Let the oppressed go free. Israel had those definitions set early in their history and it was repeated through the generations. Read more

  • Reset toward justice

    Isaiah 58 will be my grounding text for Lent. I can get caught up in fasting “correctly” and making sure I do some readings. What I am challenged in this season is the walk I have in this world. Read more

  • FOCUS… it is Ash Wednesday

    May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14) “The Cross is the great revealer, exposing the temporary stuff of earth and directing our hearts and minds toward the everlasting substance of eternity.” — Jay… Read more

  • The journey of Lent

    It is coming to the time of Lent in the Church calendar. This is a time of “penitence, fasting, and prayer, in preparation for the great feast of the resurrection” (BCP 2019). I have appreciated Easter far more since entering into the Anglican tradition. Lent gives me the pause and reflection needed to truly sense… Read more

  • The day the revolution began

    “The death of Jesus was the moment when the great gate of human history, bolted with iron bars and overgrown with toxic weeds, burst open so that the Creator’s project of reconciliation between heaven and earth could at last be set in powerful motion. The myrtle will at last replace the brier, and the cypress… Read more

  • Mercy is not always received

    Now say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem: This is what the Lord says: I am a potter preparing a disaster for you; I’m working out a plan against you. So each one of you, turn from your evil ways; reform your ways and your actions. But they said, “What’s the… Read more

  • The Gospel and “Defund the Police”

    One of the mantras conservative white Christians have decided to “debunk” so we can get back to our safety bunkers is “Defund the Police.” It really caught our attention after the murder of George Floyd. Read more

  • “Being saved” and “getting to heaven”

    When we have typically thought of the gospel in western evangelicalism, it has been around the questions like, “How are my sins forgiven?” and “How do I get to heaven?” N.T. Wright turns my thinking in a different direction: Read more

  • The reckoning we don’t recognize

    Earlier this week, I gave some links to issues regarding black brothers and sisters leaving white evangelical spaces. Now, the Southern Baptists are losing Beth Moore. (I am sure many them think this is a GLAD moment for them.) Her departure is “tectonic in its reverberations,” said Jemar Tisby, the president of a Black Christian… Read more

  • Lament in the time of racism

    The trial of Derek Chauvin is supposed to start this week with jury selection in Minneapolis. Chauvin is the former Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd. In the past year it is necessary to examine how we, as white believers, have done in this issue of racism. Lent should be that… Read more