Holy Wisdom Blog

Dizang asked Fayan, “Where are you going?” Fayan said, “Around on pilgrimage.” Dizang said, “What is the purpose of pilgrimage?” Fayan said, “I don’t know.” Dizang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.” This Zen Buddhist teaching story has been rattling around in my mind for the last couple of years, particularly the punch line:  Not knowing is most intimate.  I think it goes to the heart of our ongoing efforts to live a shared life of humility, hospitality, compassion, and care–care for ourselves, for one another, for our society, for the earth.  All of these aspects of our life are …

This morning’s gospel reading from Luke is tremendously difficult and would be so much better dealt with in a classroom or a formal bible study. And even in those spaces we’d be in for a hard slog. Many biblical commentators consider it one of the most difficult parables. My clergy friends say, “this gospel doesn’t preach.” So today we, like Jacob, are going to really wrestle with the Holy One. We will probably all walk out limping. But if we let the parable do its work, we might leave with a blessing, too. Parables were Jesus’ way of “teaching” – …

Last month marked fifty years since my ordination.  I’ve been doing this for a long time! As I prepared this homily it occurred to me that I have been preaching for even longer. I think my first attempt was on a so-called “Youth Sunday” in my hometown Iowa church as a high school kid. And, Lord, have mercy, I had a student parish assignment during my seminary years in Dubuque. Those gentle souls in McGregor, Iowa must have been very patient and tolerant with their wet-behind-the-ears, twenty something preacher. Over the years of my ministry, first in United Methodist churches in …

Biblical scholars have pointed out that the words I just read from Luke’s gospel are a combination of the Q source image of mustard seed faith and the fig tree image in Mark’s gospel which Luke changes into the largess of the mulberry tree. So I’m going to take Luke’s freeing spirit of literary license to explode that image of the mustard seed faith Jesus gives us into the theme of Jesus calling us to a mustard seed life. A mustard seed life entails an understanding that small things matter, small actions matter; small, small details of our daily life …