The Forward Day by Day Archives
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- Today, Jesus calls us salt—a high compliment. Jesus reinforces this by asking us to be salty in our relationships, indicating that saltiness is in tandem with peacefulness. Salty, faithful Christians can change the world. Salty people season the families, communities, nourish and enrich the enviro....
- While on one of his preaching and teaching walks, Jesus overhears the disciples arguing about the greatest among them, and he lets them know how he feels about this conversation. Maybe they are trying to understand Jesus’ explanation of the kingdom. The disciples wonder how the glory of Jesus refl....
- Years ago, I was rector for a large parish in Mozambique. This particular story takes place after the busyness of Holy Week services, during a long, joyful Easter morning service with dancing, singing, praying, preaching, and readings—and more dancing and singing.
SATURDAY, March 28 James S. Russell
This one verse from Mark’s ninth chapter is a microcosm of the Biblical witness to the human condition and our dependence on God’s mercy. Understanding the Bible’s witness to God in Christ allows us to reclaim the Bible’s immediacy and integrity—for our world and ourselves. The Bible speak....FRIDAY, March 27 Charles Henry Brent
Appointed bishop to the Philippines in 1902 and to Western New York in 1918, Charles Henry Brent listened and lived out the love of God’s own beloved. In the colonial outposts in Southeast Asia, he established thriving Christian communities. He campaigned against the opium trade, was senior chapla....THURSDAY, March 26 Harriet Monsell
From The Archives: July 20, 1969Michelangelo’s greatest masterpiece, some would say, is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Like Nicodemus, he came to his work with mixed motives, but Michelangelo’s motives changed, and he stayed with his....
WEDNESDAY, March 25 The Annunciation
Today is a day for names.In Isaiah, the promised Messiah’s name is to be Emmanuel, God with us, embodying the divine promise of protection to the children of Israel. Emmanuel—a redeeming presence in the midst of disaster. In Luke, Gabriel brings a mess....
TUESDAY, March 24 Óscar Romero
In 1980, Roman Catholic Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador was assassinated while celebrating Mass. Romero lived a public ministry distinguished by speaking out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture.While the Salvadoran gover....
MONDAY, March 23 Gregory the Illuminator
An unaccompanied woman with a demon-possessed daughter initiating a conversation with a strange man will prompt some controversial responses. Even Jesus is prickly. Then Jesus blows God’s love and healing power wide open, negating ethnic, political, and social boundaries by speaking to a woman—a....When Jesus heals the blind man who hasn’t asked to be healed, it is Jesus himself who interprets this healing with dialogue and commentary. He explains the need to do the works of him who sent me...as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. ....Thomas Ken was born in 1637 in Berkhampsted, Hertfordshire, England—the same village where my grandmother grew up. Ken was an Anglican bishop, royal chaplain to King Charles II of England, and one of seven bishops who opposed James II’s Declaration of Indulgence. After the petition of opposition....Earlier on this day, Jesus and his disciples are on one side of the sea of Galilee with a crowd of five thousand people. What Jesus blesses, breaks, and gives to meet the crowd’s need is a miraculous abundance of more than enough.The disciples don’t ha....
THURSDAY, March 19 Saint Joseph
From The Archives: June 6, 1944What we call infinity in time and space is beyond our comprehension. Time is no more infinite in the dawn of the geologic past or in the millennium of the farthest prophetic future than it is now while you put into it what thoughts and ac....
WEDNESDAY, March 18 Cyril of Jerusalem
I met Sarah one summer, just as she began to process some horrible childhood events. We walked many, many miles together on those summer evenings. I listened as Sarah shared every last detail of her stories.With an ordained friend, we shared eucharist one evening. As we said the pray....
TUESDAY, March 17 Patrick of Ireland
What God reveals in Jesus is not a new idea or something wholly different from ways God has acted before. God has been at the same work all along.Today’s psalm is full of the stories of God’s provision, compassion, and presence through history. In our g....
In reading this story about the privileged and the poorest, we have much to learn from both angles of view: one lesson is to comprehend the power of God in Jesus as generative and nurturing. Another perspective—as I heard one woman say—The beauty of standing up is that others see you standin....The theological dialogue between Jesus and this unnamed Samaritan woman is a beautiful example of the compassionate inclusivity of the One whose kingdom is coming and is already among and with us. Jesus engages with someone that his family and religio-cultural community would find scandalous. Jesus ....Some of us in more “advanced” parts of the world forget the deep mystery of the miraculous, especially when it comes to healings and exorcisms. Mark describes four exorcisms and refers to many more, showing us the ways Jesus points to the cosmic battle with Satan.FRIDAY, March 13 James Theodore Holly
Jesus is telling us parables about how faith is planted and grown, fed mysteriously with the light, soil, and water of God’s being. The disciples hear these parables and are a part of the inner circle that hears the secrets of the kingdom explained privately.THURSDAY, March 12 Gregory the Great
From the Archives: January 20, 1982A great deal of what passes for Evangelism in America is in fact Revival. The author of Hebrews would not think much of this. Here, the author expresses the conviction that rehearsing the ABC’s of Christi....
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