No King but Jesus
A Reflection on Christ the King Christ the King Sunday can be a difficult topic to preach, especially for Citizens of the United States. It is baked into our Revolutionary DNA to distrust a king! Human kingdoms are built on the idea that one man has all the power....
Seek Shalom for Your Enemies
The Gospel reading this week tells the story of Jesus’ encounter with ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19. The geography of this story matters. Jesus is traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem. He is in a region “between Galilee and Samaria.” (Remember, the Jews in Jesus’ day...
Apologies for a Broken Email
This post is an open apology to those of you who have subscribed to my daily posts. The promise was that you would receive an email every day at 1:00pm if I had posted something that day. This morning I sat down to craft my monthly newsletter and I realized that my...
Summer Gallery 2025
Enjoy my gallery of artwork from the Summer of 2025.
Lazarus and the Rich Man | A Visual Commentary on Luke 16:19-31
Jesus tells a parable in Luke 16:19-31 about a poor man named Lazarus and a wealthy man who die on the same day. I can’t make sense out of this parable unless I go back to Luke 15:1, start from there, and roll into the parable within the context of the larger...
Why Would God Ask Abraham to Sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22:1-14?
Text for the Narrative Lectionary on September 14, 2025: Genesis 21:1-3, 22:1-14.
The challenge for the Narrative Lectionary preacher this week is two-fold:
First, the story gap. Second, Why would God ask Abraham to Sacrifice Isaac?
Reflecting on Hate in Luke 14:25-33 | A Contemplative Livestream
On Friday, September 5, at 4:00pm CT I livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook for an hour. I created an original image from scratch in Procreate on my iPad Pro. Bring your art supplies and create with me, or simply sit back and allow my creative process to be a...
Why Does Jesus Tell Us to Hate in Luke 14:25-33?
This week’s Gospel reading (Luke 14:25–33) is a hard one. Jesus turns to the crowd and says:
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
That word—hate—lands with a sting. It was provocative in Jesus’ day, and it feels even sharper in ours. What could he possibly mean?
In this visual meditation, I slow down and enter the text with my pen, letting images, movement, and scripture interweave. As I draw, I listen for the deeper challenge of discipleship: Is Jesus calling us to despise our families? Or, is there something deeper? Is he calling us to deal with the cost of following him.
