With today’s gospel reading, the long debate between Jesus and the leaders of his religious community that has been unfolding in Matthew’s gospel that we have been reading for the last several weeks comes to an end with the assertion that after this no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. As a former…
How often do we hear it said to not mix religion with politics? Perhaps we have said that ourselves many times. But such a statement misses the point that we are all political animals. Politics is in our nature, although the very word means many different things to different people. In today’s gospel Jesus is…
The middle part of Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet is one of my favorites of all the stories Jesus tells. It really draws you in, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t like a party, after all. And this party is the one that all the really cool people got invited to. It’s like the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Except that…
The twenty-first chapter of Matthew’s gospel, which we have been reading from for two Sundays, depicts Jesus at his most confrontational. He’s just made that triumphal entry into Jerusalem that we remember on Palm Sunday, and he knows the leaders of his faith community are gunning for him, and yet he seems to be baiting…