The Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14) starts out by these intriguing words: ?The kingdom of heaven is like . . .?? In the Gospels there are several parables that start with these words.? Most people are interested in these parables regardless of what they think the hereafter holds in store for them personally.? Just think?learning what heaven is really like!? This parable does just that. Read more…

Almost everyone enjoys a good story, especially when the storyteller has a real talent for relating stories.? That is one of the reasons the parables of Jesus have attracted the interest of people from all walks of life dating as far back as the beginning of Christianity.? Jesus was a master storyteller.??

It was the genius of Jesus to use real-life stories?parables?to unite our vertical connection to the Almighty with our horizontal connections to all of life.? If the parables are properly understood, they make God real and foremost in understanding all of our relationships in our daily lives: personal, social, political, professional, recreational?yes, through the parables we can be connected to God in all that we think, say, and do, to life itself.? Read more…

Daylight saving time has started this weekend, as we turned out clocks forward one hour, resulting in giving us more daylight at the end of the day.?

My grandmother was a music teacher.? She always kept two clocks on her piano.? She was a religious woman and said one of the clocks was set to God’s time and the other to man’s time.? The one set on standard time she called God’s time, and the one on daylight saving time she called man’s time.? The family always joked about it, but it was no joking matter to her.? The two clocks remained on her piano year around.

Most authorities agree that the world is divided into twenty-four times zones.? Prior to the advent of railroads there was no reason for time zones to be standardized, and countries and cities had their own ways of determining what time it was.? But with the advent of a single mode of uninterrupted travel, Read more…

This coming Wednesday, March 5, is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.? Let?s take a look at the historical emergence and spiritual significance of the Lenten season.?

Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on the day before Easter.? The six Sundays of this time-span are not considered part of Lent.? Only weekdays are included in Lent.? Hence, Lent is the forty weekdays beginning with Ash Wednesday and concluding with the day before Easter.

But how is it that the church adopted ?forty? as the number of weekdays in Lent?? Read more…