This is the part of the liturgical year where the lectionary can be confusing to those to whom it is new. Because the date of Easter moves (I have strong opinions about that and believe we should be on the orthodox calendar), we have varying numbers of weeks from Easter to Advent. Their readings are...... Read More

Sin was supposed to mean “missing the mark of God’s expectation for us.” And yes, some of those expectations can be found on lists configured as rules and laws but they are only the framework of a tapestry in which our love for God is interwoven with her love for us producing the gorgeous colors...... Read More

It ain’t ova! Eastertide, the season of Easter: Fifty days of wonder as an impossible story spreads in ripples and waves and soon everyone knows someone who knows someone who saw him or touched him. In Easter week, Jesus is walking through walls (Monday), having a fish barbeque on the beach (Tuesday), opening minds to...... Read More

The story of the widow of Zarephath is extraordinary. She receives a rare miracle when she and her son are on the verge of starving to death and the prophet Elijah makes a way out of no way. That should be enough. A happy ending. This week her story continues with the unexpected illness of...... Read More

Reading between the lines: God told Elijah she told a widow to provide for him. That conversation is missing. The widow seems surprised by his demand, not request. Why would she do such a thing? Feed a stranger before her child? How do we tell the story in a world where some shepherds fleece their...... Read More

The proclamation that God is in the midst of Daughter Zion invites a double hearing: God is present with her people and for Christians reading with and through the New Testament, that one daughter of Zion could say that God was incarnate in her, in the midst of the flesh and blood of her body....... Read More

In Advent we await the birth of a Savior, a Redeemer, who is but a babe. This week the Holy Child receives literary company in the little boy Samuel at his mother’s breast. These two women, Mary and Hannah, encounter God in extraordinary ways, unmediated by the men around them and as a result bear...... Read More

Another week in Advent, another annunciation. This time the woman is not named, her son will be, Samson the strong. Like Yocheved (Jochebed) the mother of Moses, she will be the mother of Israel’s deliver. Yet this woman named many times over by the rabbis is more than a womb pressed into service. She is...... Read More

An excerpt from my womanist midrash of the story of the two sisters commonly called “Lot’s daughters” on thetorah.com. The story is usually referred to as “Lot and His Daughters” or some such locution that emphasizes Lot’s place as the protagonist of the biblical story. The story can also be read as the sisters’ story,...... Read More

A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W, Proper 24 (Closest to October 19): 2 Samuel 21:1-14; Psalm 58; Revelation 6:9-11; Luke 6:43-45 Yesterday, we talked about the women’s stories in scripture that we do and do not hear taught and preached. Sometimes we don’t hear stories of women because their pieces are scattered...... Read More