In this message Pastor T. C. explores the way we locate ourselves ethnically, racially, and relative to others in society. In Acts 21, Paul attempts to navigate what Dr. Willie James Jennings calls the “diaspora anxiety” of the Jerusalem elders. But it fails spectacularly. We need a better way.
In this Epiphany homily, Pastor T. C. draws out two themes from the story of the Magi who visit the child Jesus in Matthew 2. The first theme is Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Admiration. The second is “returning home by another way.”
This is the second message in the teaching series on Jesus’s parables called, “Ears to Hear.” In this sermon, Pastor T. C. contrasts a story from a song, called “The Snake,” with a parable of Jesus which has come to be known as “The Good Samaritan.” The Snake story is a favorite of the current…
In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There he confronts the devil and resists three temptations. These three temptations aren’t just instructive for us personally, they also describe perennial temptations the church faces in relationship to society. They are: 1. Empire Economics; 2. Idolatrous Nationalism; and 3.…
In Romans 1.18–32, Paul employs language that echoes common Jewish stereotypes of Gentiles as particularly depraved and deserving of God’s wrath. Examples of this rhetoric can be found in Wisdom of Solomon. But Paul uses this rhetoric not to reinforce division between the Jewish and Gentile disciples in Rome. No! Paul uses it as a…