Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples. Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we can stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary,
Maybe we want the people who care for us and lead us to not be like us, to not struggle like us, because if we realize they, too, are hurting and needy, then maybe the spell — the illusion that we’re...
It’s my practice to welcome new people to the church by making sure they know that House for All Sinners and Saints will, at some point, let them down. That I will say or do something stupid and disap...
Identity. It’s always God’s first move. Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God’s own.
I'm more haunted by how what I've said and the things I've done have caused harm to myself and others than I am worried that God will punish me for being bad. Because in the end, we aren't punished fo...
I recently was asked by an earnest young seminarian during a Q&A, Pastor Nadia, what do you do personally to get closer to God? Before I even realized I was saying it, I replied, What? Nothing. Sounds...
I need to be broken apart and put back into a different shape by that merging of things human and divine, which is really screwing up and receiving grace and love and forgiveness rather than receiving...
I knew Catholics existed, with their saints and candles and rosaries, and all their other exotic ways of being wrong.
I can only look at the seemingly limited space under the tent and think either it’s my job to change people so they fit or it’s my job to extend the roof so that they fit. Either way, it’s misguided b...
Having said that, if you want a community like the one you’ve just read about, I bet you are not the only one in your town who feels this way. So do what we did: Gather a small number of people once a...
Church is messed up. I know that. People, including me, have been hurt by it. But as my United Church of Christ pastor friend Heather says, Church isn’t perfect. It’s practice. Among God’s people, th...
But we’ve lost the plot if we use religion as the place where we escape from difficult realities instead of as the place where those difficult realities are given meaning.
Because in these healing texts, Jesus does not just cure people’s diseases and cast out their demons and then say, Mission accomplished. He’s always after something more than that because the healing...
Augustine's shame reportedly took root when, as an adolescent, he got an erection while at a Roman bath. Embarrassing, yes. But Augustine was so consumed with shame of not being able to control his er...
Apparently, thousands of parents had been warned that their children would be exposed to dangerous ideas from scandalous women if we weren't uninvited. Of course if no one had ever been exposed to dan...
Any identity other than child of God is spiritually meaningless.
And the strangeness of the good news is that, like those in Matthew 25 who sat before the throne and said Huh? When did we ever feed you, Lord?, we never know when we experience Jesus in all of this....
Pas • triks) noun 1). A term of insult used by unimaginative sections of the church to define female pastors. 2). Female ecclesiastical superhero: Trinity from The Matrix in a clerical collar. What on...
What happens at the cross is a blessed exchange. God gathers up all our sin, all our broken-ass junk, into God’s own self and transforms all that death into life. Jesus takes our crap and exchanges it...
There was something about hearing it that was so different than just imagining it to be true. To hear I was loved meant something very particular because of the context in which I heard it, as though...