Or so it seems. Ah yes, the parable of the ’shrewd’ manager. The enigmatic parable of the shrewd manager. The one in which Jesus praises a guy for taking advantage of his boss.

Take a few minutes and read the story. Think about. What’s really going on here? Jesus ends up praising the man for trashing his boss’ business - to benefit himself? How does that work?

We’re going to be talking about it on Sunday. We’re going to break into groups, ask some simple questions, try to get a handle on what’s really going on here. I suspect there will be more than one take on this. And you know, that’s part of what makes Third Space unique - we’re willing to hash this stuff out together, knowing that we might not all land on the same square, understanding that it’s okay.

Messy, but beautiful. I love it.

I’ve got questions about God, about Jesus, the Holy Spirit. I’ve got questions about the bible, about how we got it, about what it says and doesn’t say. They’re real questions. They’re not going away.
Over the last year or so I’ve found myself increasingly disturbed as I pursue these questions. What unsettles me, far more [...]

The Apenine Mountains run like a high, ridged seam down the center of Italy’s boot. The Rubicon river, flowing down out of the mountains to the eastern coast, neatly divides the map into northern and southern regions. In the ancient world it was illegal for a Roman general to cross the river with his troops [...]

Sometimes the bible’s lack of detail is maddening. The entire book of Exodus - from a the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, to the baby Moses in the reeds, through all the plagues and the Passover - leads to one, climactic moment in which the Jews flee Egypt in the middle of the night. After [...]

Poker players look for a ‘tell’ on the faces around the table - a twitch, a gesture, a mannerism - that hints at what the player is hiding in their hand.  in the Exodus story Moses tries to bargain with Pharaoh to secure the release of the Jews and the result is disastrous. As a [...]

What happens when things don’t work out the way we had hoped? Where do we turn when the worst case scenario becomes the very thing we must live through? When there’s no explanation for our suffering, how can we go on? And what if - and this may be the most difficult question of all [...]

This Sunday we’re going to be walking through a rather long - and rather curious passage of scripture. This is the story of Moses encountering God in the burning bush and the difficult conversation he has with God. Difficult? Oh yeah - no question about it. God has considerable difficulty with Moses - and Moses [...]

Yesterday AndyMac sang for us and this was one of the songs he chose. He talked about how sometimes God lets us make our decisions - he lets us go our own way, even when he knows the outcome is not what his heart desires. Sometimes, AndyMac said, God lets us go, and this song [...]

“A happy heart,” the bible says,  “makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.” (Proverbs 15:13). I’m trying to practice joyfulness. At first that might sound a bit odd but I’ve learned that happiness isn’t something that happens to us - it’s something we create. It’s a conscious acknowledgment that this life God [...]

In the lectionary readings for this week is a curious story about Jesus healing a man. There was a pool in Jerusalem that, every once in a while, had the waters stirred up by an angel. The first person who got into the water when the angel stirred it up was healed [...]