This week we will look at the story of Esther. The Book of Esther is a WEIRD Bible book. Why? Well, God is not mentioned in the book. Not even once. No one calls on God for help; no one prays to God, there is no praising or worshipping of God. And God’s self is absent in the whole story: God doesn’t appear or speak to anyone, not even through dreams or miracles – nothing. Nada. The book is like no other book in the Bible. Imagine that, a book in Scripture that doesn’t mention God! What is that all about?

Read more...

Yesterday (Wednesday) was the funeral of California Highway Patrol Officer Philip Ortiz, who died June 22 from injuries suffered in an accident on the 405 Freeway. Officer Ortiz, 48, was writing a ticket in the emergency lane of the 405 freeway when he was struck by a car and pinned against the sport utility vehicle he had pulled over. At his funeral Mass held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, one of the speakers said what so many others have said in the midst of tragedy and violent death, “God took Officer Ortiz home.” I thought to myself, “Is God Good? Or Is God violent?”

Read more...

Last week I shared with you from the Book of Judges, chapter 11, the horrifying story of Jephthah’s unnamed daughter. This week we will look at the book of Judges once again, but this time the story is dramatically different. It is the story of a woman extraordinaire; it is the story of Deborah and Jael who delivered the Israelites from oppression. The story is told in narrative form in chapter 4 of the Book of Judges and retold in poetic form known as “The Song of Deborah” in chapter 5.

Read more...

A couple weeks ago I was talking with a friend about the proposed legislation for Financial Reform that is being reconciled between the US House of Representatives and the Senate. One of the many issues the Congress is wrestling with is should the families of those who intentionally defraud investors be allowed to keep a portion of the money they’ve “made” or should everything they own be taken and redistributed to those who had been defrauded? In other words, what the government is trying to figure out is, “How can we get people to act ‘more’ morally right?” because what’s out there now doesn’t do it.

Read more...

Not all the stories in Scripture about women are uplifting or empowering. Many are sad, some even horrifying. One such case is the story of Jephthah’s unnamed daughter. A story of blaming the victim, a story of a vulnerable person being sacrificed for so-called pious reasons, a story about a complacent community failing to act in the face of injustice. We find this unnamed girl’s story in Judges 11.

Read more...

Sunday, June 27, was the final one in our June series, “How Jesus Changed Christianity.” It focused on “The spiritual and humanitarian concerns in the current debate about Immigration Reform.”

Summer worship series:

A New Kind of Christianity:
Think differently,
Act differently,
Believe Differently.

Read more...

But if you’re content to simply be yourself, you will become more than yourself.

~ Luke 14:11

It used to be if you asked kids what they wanted to be, they invariably said doctors, teachers, or lawyers. But these days the typical answer is: “I want to be famous.” A Pew Research Centre poll in 2007 found that 81 percent of 18 to 25 year-olds surveyed said getting rich was their generation’s most important or second-most important life goal; 51 percent said the same about being famous. This in itself is not news; we all know that we are living in a celebrity-obsessed society.

Read more...

Last week we started a new series following the faith journeys of women in Scripture. We took a peek at one of the nameless women in Scripture, a Canaanite woman – an outsider. This week we will take a closer look at a woman who was even more suspect: an outsider and one who was involved in an act of sexual impropriety. Her name was Tamar. If you have never heard of her before, I would not be surprised – pastors have a tendency to avoid her story when choosing a text to preach on. It’s a shame – her story is both radical and profound.

Read more...

We recently started our new Bible Study series on prayer. We are doing it in the format of a Book Club. The book we are reading together is called Prayer: Does it make any difference? by Philip Yancey.

Read more...

We’ve all been in that awkward situation where somebody tells a dramatic story and half the people who have gathered around to listen “get it” and half don’t. Somebody then has to go back and explain the portion that wasn’t understood.

That’s the way it is with this wonderful story of the Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch. The problem is, for thousands of years, very few people have gone back to explain the portion that wasn’t understood.

As a friend of mine loves to say, “This is as gay as it gets!” Interestingly, many Biblical Scholars are coming to that same conclusion.

Read more...