Mark Whittall

It started with a question. “When is the kingdom of God coming?” When will God make things right? Because we’re not ok. We’ve been oppressed for centuries, conquered by other nations. When is the kingdom of God coming? That was the question. And Jesus gave two answers: The kingdom of God is among you. It’s within you. It’s here, now! But then he says. “The days are coming when the kingdom of God will be revealed” Two answers to the same question. It’s here, now. It’s n

One of the things I love about the English language is that our words are so flexible. You know what I mean? You can take a word and use it as a noun, as a verb, as an adjective and sometimes even an adverb. I love my work, I work hard, these are my work clothes. But there is one big exception in the English language, and that is the word “faith”. We’re allowed to use it as a noun, we can say “increase my faith” but we never get to use it as a verb. And that is a real pro

Did you hear the alarm go off? This is a wake-up call. Will you do something about it before it’s too late? In today’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable about the afterlife, about a poor man and a rich man who die, one taken to be with Abraham and one who goes to Hades. It’s tempting to use this as an excuse to speculate about heaven and hell - but if we do, we will miss both the point and the urgency of the parable. Sometimes I tell a story I heard once about the census in he