by Richard Wilson | Dec 1, 2020 | Opinion
The second Sunday of Advent – the week we set fire to the Peace candle – has confused me for as long as I can remember. The cluster of texts in Year B, our current cycle, sends mixed messages of comfort and dismay, restoration and destruction, and the hope for renewal...
by Richard Wilson | Apr 17, 2020 | Opinion
Exile is a powerful concept in the Hebrew Bible. In addition, it turns out to be transformative as Christianity emerges half-a-millennium later. Life in Judah and Jerusalem in the 590s and 580s BCE changed dramatically. The proactive invasion of Jerusalem by the...
by Richard Wilson | Mar 4, 2020 | Opinion
The history of covenant people, a history that includes Jews, Christians and Muslims, begins with a short paragraph: Genesis 12:1-3. The first utterance of the Lord to Abram is a barked imperative, “Go!” With similar simplicity, Genesis 12:4 reports, “So Abram went,...
by Richard Wilson | Jan 17, 2020 | Opinion
Accomplished orators – whether they are preachers or politicians – often weave old themes and phrases upon new looms. Sometimes, they fold up a tapestry completed for one setting and unfurl it, as if new, in a different setting. Martin Luther King Jr. did. His sermons...
by Richard Wilson | Dec 2, 2019 | Opinion
Isaiah 11:1-10 offers a full, vibrant glimpse of hopes for peace, giving readers a touchstone for another Advent season where our proclamations of “peace on earth” are spoken with quivering lips and a fear that our voices will crack. Global political strife is as high...
