The disposable one

There are, as “everyone” knows, ten commandments. Some of us even remember them, or some of them. Don’t kill. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. They are pretty clear. We try to figure out the edges, of course (“I’m just borrowing it. I was planning to pay it back”) but we have a sense of what […]

Read More…

Sometimes you are along for the ride

I just realized something. Lazarus never says anything. I mean, Martha and Mary both have speaking roles. They both talk with Jesus, Martha several times. But Lazarus? Not a word. The more I think about it, he never does much of anything, either. First he dies. Then, when Jesus tells him to come out of […]

Read More…

I will never understand.

That’s what lots of people think when it comes to Jesus stuff. “I will never understand the Bible. I will never understand these stories. I will never understand God and theology.” Neither did the disciples. John writes oddly. He shifts from describing events in Jesus’ life to the inside of the disciples’ heads at the […]

Read More…

one time and one time only.

Jesus welcomed Mary’s perfume. She poured it on his feet. He defended her action to Judas as being part of the burial process, a part of the process that Jesus knew wouldn’t happen. And then he said, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” I wonder if […]

Read More…

It’s okay to not know everything.

Friday ended with a question: “What would make her [Mary, Martha’s sister] so grateful that she would give it all to Jesus? What do you think?” You didn’t answer. I don’t blame you. Any answer would be speculation. One friend of mine suggests that she may have been a prostitute. Catholic tradition for centuries made […]

Read More…