The day before the day before. I envision Mary and Joseph on the last leg of their travels. The final day’s journey southward toward Bethlehem is very hilly and rocky. They would pass the glorious holy city of Jerusalem. They had, of course, been there with thousands... You may have heard shepherds were poor, at the bottom of the economic/respect ladder. Maybe. Some were humble laborers – but so were most people living in Palestine back then. Some were a bit wealthier, owning flocks and hiring shepherd underlings. Some were women!... Probably because I had a charismatic high school history teacher who loved ancient Rome, and then a mesmerizing college professor who gave spellbinding lectures on the Romans, I’ve been obsessed with them, and have dragged my kids to visit Roman ruins in Italy,... I was surprised and then delighted by the great Richard Rohr’s thought, when commenting on Mary’s journey from her home in Nazareth to visit her relative Elizabeth, 100 miles away, and on foot while pregnant: “Mary became the first missionary to take Christ out into... Mary moves me so – during Advent and at Christmas, of course, but always. No one was closer to Jesus. No one understood his utter humanity better. No one felt the weight of caring for and nurturing him given who he was… And she was there at his end, at the cross. No... How surprised was Mary, and then Luke’s first readers when Gabriel materialized? They believed in angels but didn’t encounter them very often. The bigger surprise? Luke emphasizes that she is a virgin – no big shock for a young woman in a small town with few... Today, Nazareth is a bustling, crowded city, population 80,000, two-thirds Muslim and one-third Christian – and they get along famously! Back in Bible times though, Nazareth barely qualified as a village, with a population of maybe 100. A little town in the middle of... As Thanksgiving is upon us, you should know how very deeply grateful I am for you, that you read what I send, that you care about who we are as God’s people and the responsibilities and joys God entrusts to us. I thank you for letting me have the job that I have –... I love the way Scripture is so very different from and much richer than even a page-turner of a novel. You read the novel, you’re done. But with Scripture, you’re never done – or it’s never done with you! You re-read, again and again, and you never fail to find more,... Before scurrying ahead to the stories of Mary and the angel, the manger and the shepherds, let’s be attentive to what matters to Luke, that great literary artist and wise theologian. For him, you can’t get to Jesus without first walking a while with Elizabeth and... 