Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. Last week’s Gospel parable about the wise use of “dishonest wealth” ended with this warning:  You cannot serve God and wealth.  It is just as stark a warning for us as it was for those who heard…

Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.   In today’s Gospel reading Jesus upends the commonplace idea that religious communities are only meant to be places of moral excellence and respectability.  Clean up your act, the theory goes, and then you’ll be welcome in…

Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.   Today we read all but the last four verses of the Letter to Philemon – which is the shortest Epistle in the New Testament.  For all that it is short, it has had an outsized influence…