Wil
Biblical scholar in Hebrew and Hebrew Bible: special interest in translation textual plurality, (Septuagint, Dead Seas Scrolls, Samaritan Pentateuch, Aleppo Codex, Leningrad Codex); feminist, womanist and post-colonial biblical interpretation; prophets and prophecy in the Ancient Near East and ancient Israel Episcopal priest, product of the Black Church, author, blogger, preacher, teacher, lecturer, public speaker
Holocausts and Memorials
The sheer scope of the evil manifested in the holocaust is nearly unimaginable. Today’s visit to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem held the inhumanity of those who planned in meticulous detail to annihilate the Jews of Europe and began carrying out their unfathomable horror in the sharpest contrast with the fragile yet resilient...... Read More
Tangled Threads
I am on what I call a deep listening tour in Israel and Palestine with Interfaith Partners for Peace. They have selected threads to weave together in conversation, each of which is connected to other threads, tangled, torn, frayed, yet still revealing shadows and shapes larger and more complex than the frames we have. Today...... Read More
A Seat At The Table
Have a seat at the table. Whose table is it? Who is issuing the invitation? Can we have a meaningful conversation when one presumes they own the table and the other disputes that claim? It may be that no one can sit at that table. We may have to sit somewhere else to figure out...... Read More
Deep Listening
I am returning to a place I love, a place that breaks my heart: Jerusalem. It’s a complicated place with conflicting and contradictory stories. I am going to listen to some of those stories, as deeply as I can. I will bring my question, hopes, prayers, and beliefs with me. I will try to keep...... Read More
Seasons of Sorrow
Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, on the Jewish calendar marks a series of sorrows, most notably the multiple destructions of the temple in Jerusalem. It has always struck me as impoverishing that Christians neglect the story of the fall in the lectionary and in non-lectionary preaching as my students over...... Read More
How Deep Is Your Love
Let us pray: God of love, teach us to love as you love. Amen. The Bee Gees, Dru Hill, Calvin Harris, and a few folk I’ve never heard of have all asked, “How deep is your love.” If they were to ask the biblical characters, more often than not the answer might seem be, “not...... Read More
A New/Old Psalm of Lament
If you don’t mind, I’m going to take some liberties with Psalm 13. How long Holy One? Will you forget us forever? How long will you let them kill us? How long will you let them deny us justice? How long O Lord? How long will you hide your face from us? From what...... Read More
Exorcising America’s Murderous Demons
[In an earlier version the title was misspelled as “exercising.”] In the Name of the God who loves we who are hated, those who hate, and those whom we hate. Amen. Forty-nine. Forty-nine lives cut short. Forty-nine people murdered. Forty-nine souls martyred. Forty-nine of God’s children executed for living and loving out loud as gay,...... Read More
Ascended to Where?
Open our eyes that we may see. Amen. We are here in no small part because of the power of the story Jesus. That power permeates the words of the story and extends far beyond them. It is a power that defies the rules of logic and science. The touchstone confessions of our faith are...... Read More
She is God
Alleluia! Christ is risen! For fifty days the Jewish and Gentile Christians of the early church told the stories of Jesus, his life, his death and his life-from-death over and over. Jesus was raised from the dead as he said he would be. I imagine everyone knew someone who had seen him, touched him, broken...... Read More