The gospel lesson for this week is one of movement. From the very first scene, “as he walked along…,” to the very last, when the formerly-blind man has been “driven out” and Jesus comes to him, the text is filled with motion. The physical motion of the text is reflected in the dialogue of the characters. For as the formerly-blind man and the Pharisees/Jews talk, the text traces trajectories of movement in their responses to the man, Jesus, and what he had done in, to, and for the...

We have been engrained to hate legalism. Protestants perhaps fear legalism above all things – despite being quite good at our own forms of legalism. Ritualism, rote actions of self-absorption, and self-promoting religion that creates hierarchies are like scratching a chalkboard with nails. We are always skeptical that there has ever been a good Pharisee or a kind scribe that was not absorbed by this spiritual navel-gazing. Matthew’s caution in Matthew 6 to not do our “acts of piety” for...

This week begins three weeks in 1 Timothy, with another 4 weeks in 2 Timothy, for the second lectionary reading. This dip into the...