The Crossings Blog

Biblical Depiction as Judgment and Promise Co-Missioners, “Christ for you, Christ for us.” Call this the bumper sticker version of God’s key message to the world, entrusted for delivery to folks strangely called “the saints,” the strangeness arising from the fact that no one save God would think to label them as such. How ordinary they look. ...

Co-Missioners, The first step in a Crossing analysis, be it of a Scriptural text or a present reality, is to identify a problem that demands attention. Our mission correspondent, Richard Gahl, does this today in a follow-up to his reflection last week about culture shifts in the U.S. His focus now is on a recent report from ...

Co-Missioners, “Tracking” is a term Crossings practitioners use for a process that examines the contents of an everyday life for signs of correlation with issues surfaced in Scriptural texts. It starts and ends with careful listening to people the Word of God aims to address in today’s moment. Such listening is more important than ever in 2019—assuming, ...

Co-Missioners, On this 502nd anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, we remind you of the first of them: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt. 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Such is the speck of a pebble that launched the continental rockslide we know in retrospect as ...

Co-Missioners, Lutherans in America, if not elsewhere in the world, will celebrate Reformation Sunday three days from now. We will do so as usual in several rival camps, each with its set of gripes about the others, each with its distinct penchant for obscuring the Gospel we all claim to celebrate. Not that any camp would ...

Co-Missioners, Some of us are already starting to slip our Reformation caps on. This year’s annual Lutheran observance, on October 27, is but three Sundays hence. The day’s Epistle, Romans 3:21-28, ends with the resounding declaration that “a person is justified by faith.” So really, what does that mean? With this in mind, we take you today ...

Co-Missioners, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence / and in fear and trembling stand….” See below for the second and final installment of Fred Niedner’s presentation at the Crossings’ conference this past January. Last week’s first installment closed with a reflection on Job which bears reviewing as you step into this. A reminder that we’re taking registrations for ...

Co-Missioners, The dates are January 26-29. That’s when the 2020 Crossings Conference is set to unfold. The venue as always is the Shrine of our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois. The lineup of speakers is, dare we say, dynamic. One of them is traveling all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Another was born and ...

Co-Missioners, In the wake of Hurricane Dorian—how terrible that was, and how quickly it recedes from the world’s attention and our own as well—we send along a year-old sermon by Steve Albertin. He preached it on June 24, 2018, when news feeds were stuffed with reports and discussion of events at America’s border with Mexico. The ...

Co-Missioners, Today we pass along a homily—a brief, condensed sermon—that was delivered this very morning at a meeting of ELCA pastors and other rostered leaders in a corner of northeastern Ohio. Peace and Joy, The Crossing Community “What Else Shall We Preach?” The Homily at an Anticipatory Observance of Holy Cross Day by Jerome Burce In the name of the Father, and ...