“I go to prepare a place for you. … I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” It sounds so wonderful. It sounds perhaps like what we imagine heaven to be. If that’s so, then it’s a future place, a place that we…

The New Testament contains a number of stories in which Jesus appears to people after his resurrection from the dead. However, the Easter message of the New Testament is more complex than these stories taken by themselves. The entirety of the New Testament was written from a post-resurrection perspective. The various documents represent diverse efforts…

What is a home? When you think of the word or image or idea of a home, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of a building, made with wood and plaster, or brick and mortar. Perhaps you think of home as a shelter from the storm, a place of refuge. Perhaps when you hear…

The dramatic, fast-moving pace set by St. Paul once he made the decision to respond to God’s summons to enter Macedonia continues with this visit to Thessalonica (Thessaloniki in Greek). Someone must have told Paul the story of the city: how it used to be called Therma, and how Cassandros, a general in Alexander’s army,…

Growing churches know that people respond best to clearly defined terms of membership. When people come to a church family they want to know what it takes to be a member. What are the standards? What is expected of members? In American culture we have a hard time separating the church’s boundaries from those of…

This text from John’s gospel that we read and hear today is also commended to be read as part of our burial rite. It is commended to us because it is a statement of Jesus’ promise to us in the light of one of our worst fears. This fear is the fear of separation. When…

Sometime last year I stood in my living room, watching a neighbor of mine cut his lawn. It was a typically hot and sunny Saturday afternoon. My attention was drawn to him because I wondered why he wasn’t inside watching the baseball game of the week. But there he was, outside, pushing the gas-powered mower…