The church ought to be a place where all are welcome, but let’s be honest, it isn’t always. And that pains me. I come across people time and again who, when they learn I’m a minister, wince. When I ask, Why that reaction? they tell me how they were stung by one of the church bees. They were burned, bruised, badgered, bewildered, or bored by the church and once you’ve been stung, you never want to go near the hive (a church) again.

Which makes me grateful to be part of a church like Woodland that desires, God help us, to be a healing balm for church bee stings.

Listen: if God has indeed raised Jesus from the dead, that changes everything.  You've heard of Spring cleaning? Well, introducing the Easter makeover. Peter says, we've been “born anew to a living hope.”

Street theater, anybody? It’s Holy Week in a world where empires still vie violently for world domination armed and armored atop the modern-day equivalents of Roman war horses. Hosanna! God save us! cry people who are weary of the death and destruction unleashed by modern-day Caesars. Into this world, our world, this week, today , enters a rabbi on a borrowed donkey.

Did you catch those opening verses? “The scribes and the Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery” Caught in the very act? Really? How? And why does she gets paraded out there for everyone to see and shame but not him? Frederick Dale Bruner, a keen and witty Bible scholar wrote, “The whole set-up has an unpleasant odor.”