Colleagues, I’m torn between a number of options for this week’s posting. The horror-stuff we just received (April 3) from our Lutheran friends in Bethlehem. Telling you about our weekend in New York City (Maundy Thursday through Easter) with four liturgies, sermons by 2 bishops–one Episcopal (Griswold), one Lutheran (Bouman)–the Easter parade on 5th Avenue, plus 2 …
Creation Spirituality – an Other Gospel
Colleagues, Once each semester the community here at the Overseas Ministries Study Center joins the Maryknoll Sisters, a Roman Catholic mission order an hour’s drive west just across the border in New York state for a week of study together. It’s home and home. So two weeks ago we went to their place. The Maryknoll campus is …
Prayer and Providence
Colleagues, Every now and then during the academic semester here at the Overseas Ministries Study Center we have no formal classes for a given week, but do a “reading week.” Last month we read and discussed the book listed below. Review addict that I am, I put my input down on paper.Since this was written, one of …
Six Months After Sept. 11
Colleagues, The missing “R” word, “repentance,” promoted in the first ThTh posting after Sept. 11, 2001–exactly 26 weeks ago–is still significant by its absence from secular and churchly language in the USA. When I mentioned that a few weeks ago commenting on President Bush’s State of the Union message, the axis-of-evil speech, I kicked the tripwire for …
“Pardon My Dying: A Sequel to Ash Wednesday”
Colleagues, Richard Weaver, a ThTh regular, Seminex alum and ELCA pastor in Ohio, asks me to ask you for prayers on behalf of his wife Estelle, undergoing a complex heart surgery on the Thursday date of this posting. So I’m sending ThTh #195 out a day early for you to do so.Another reason for posting on Wednesday …
Desert Theology and Lenten Piety
Colleagues, [First of all a correction. Last week’s ThTh–Richard Lyon’s Crossing–went out mis-numbered as #192. It really was #193. And now to this week’s #194.]The February 2002 issue of our ELCA magazine THE LUTHERAN recommended “Desert Theology,” a six-page article, for our Lenten piety. There was a “real absence” of Christ in the piece, I thought. So …
Richard Lyon’s Crossing – A Funeral Sermon
Colleagues, Here’s the sermon I preached at Richard L. Lyon’s Funeral at First Presbyterian Church, Alton Illinois on Feb. 5, 2002.At 3 a.m. of the day of the funeral I woke up in our St.L. condo with the Easter hymn couplet going through my head: “We shall rise our Lord to meet, Treading death beneath our feet.” …
A Lenten Parable: Babette’s Feast
Colleagues,”Friday Night at the Movies,” is what they called it here last weekend at OMSC, the Overseas Ministries Study Center. The film was “Babette’s Feast.” Our international/ecumenical community here–from Ghana, Niger, Congo, Myanmar, Indonesia, Korea, China, Japan plus Europe, Canada, USA–from Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Mennonite and a wide spectrum of Evangelical church heritages–watched attentively. With the …
The Gospel covers the Greatest Sin (and which sin, pray tell, is that?)
Colleagues, In last week’s posting I mentioned responses to the previous week’s ThTh #189 that I’d received from a number of women on the listserve. Even though I intended #189 to be my closure on the topic of homosexuality, these responses, as I told you a week ago, were “too good for me to try to summarize.” …
Mostly Mission, Some Miscellanea
Colleagues, First an obit. Richard L. Lyon, 77, “late-in-time” “discoverer of the Gospel” (his words), founder of the Order of Philippi, Crossings aficionado, super-whiz dentist for our family, lifelong Presbyterian AND ordained ELCA pastor–a real Mensch–died yesterday afternoon in hospice care at his daughter’s home in Texas. Marie and I are flying home to St. Louis this weekend, …