Flawed Glass

                 After battling chronic depression and serious neurological pain for years, with his business failing and seeing no livable future, our youngest son took his life last August. The grief remains demanding for our family. It flared up again this morning when I ran across one of the most difficult passages in the entire Bible. It’s the story of Jephthah (Judges 11:1-39) . Jephthah is called by the people of Gilead to lead a fight against the Ammonites. Verses 30-31: “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: ‘If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.’” Jephthah went to battle, he was victorious, and when he returned home his daughter came out to greet him. Jephthah is devastated. The text won’t allow us to pretend otherwise. He cries out; he tears his clothes; he n...

                 I haven’t written recently. It’s almost a “what’s-the-use” situation. For everybody. We’re so divided as a nation, as a church, as congregations, as families… If I write anything of substance I’ll piss somebody off—no matter what I write. We’re so divided we can’t even watch a Super Bowl together! We’re to the point that we’re not divided over issues anymore; we’re just divided. Division isn’t the condition we’re in. Division is who we have become. Sincerity and integrity scarcely matter anymore—unless it agrees with me—unless it conforms to what I believe—if I even know what I believe. From all appearances, much of our population doesn’t advance any purpose or cause except to oppose somebody else’s purpose or cause. And don’t you dare disagree with them! Disagreement is the unpardonable sin! Much of our population apparently can’t function without an enemy—by pointing out somebody else’s sins they can deflect at...