The church in which I currently serve tells the stories of scripture through grand, beautiful stained glass windows. These silent story tellers share stories of creation, fall, and redemption. They convey the stories of Jesus and the forming of the church. One of the windows tells the story of the ascension by depicting Jesus’ feet poking through the clouds as “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of [the apostles’] sight” (Acts 1:9). While feet dangling from a cloud—as if Jesus had...

The book of James is a book all about wisdom. James is chalked full of the deeply practical wisdom that moves the community of the faithful along the path of Jesus through exhortation, inspiration, and warning. To read James as a community of faith in the season of Advent has the opportunity to inspire life practices that demonstrate the active waiting that comes as we watch and wait for the coming of the Lord. Undoubtedly, this text from James is the Epistle lesson for this third Sunday in...

What is the community of faith to do when the world around them has crashed and burned, when all they held dear, everything that assured...