Taylor Mertins

Whenever we come to the table for communion, we share this short and ancient creed: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. We live in the in between, right smack dab in the middle of the already but not yet. The dawn from on high has come upon us, and it will come upon us. Whatever our personal darkness may be, whatever it is we are sifting through and trying to navigate, whatev...

Lent and Advent are the most challenging seasons of the Christian calendar because during them we receive the most difficult, demanding, bad news ever to be called good - The Cross. Twice a year our worlds are rocked, our tables are turned, demons are put to wrought, and dead dreams are brought back to life. Jesus is the reason for this season, and frankly for every season. And lest we domesticate...

Let there be no mistake, we, all of us, stand on the threshold of God’s kingdom. We never really know from moment to moment when an opportunity will come our way. It’s a mystery, but that’s where the real power lays. The Lord is always out in front of us. God’s futures approaches us, God’s future in which we will all be made new. We wait with hope by lighting whatever little lights we can, for no...

“Jesus always comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. Jesus saves us in our disasters, not from them.” - Robert Farrar Capon

I’ve joked before, though its not really a joke, about how despite the beauty of the wedding liturgy, it would be far more appropriate if the couple made this public affirmation together: “We are both broken. We have been idiots and we will be idiots again. We are both difficult to live with. We sulk and get angry and hold grudges. We both blame other people for our own mistakes, we’re not very go...

A saint is simply someone whose life manages to be a crack through which God’s grace peaks through.

God uses music to help us enter the mysteries of life, death, and life after death. We sing our faith. The words and melodies of our music transcend space and time; they tunes us in to God’s frequencies in the world. Music gives us the space to experience what we believe and how we pray when we don’t know how to put those things into words - music gives us the opportunity to feel whatever it is we...

Baptism is the gift of God’s living water that never runs dry. And it’s not just a sign of God’s love. It’s a sign of God’s love for the ungodly. Like the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus knows every little thing about us, the good and the not so good. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves and Jesus still goes to the cross for us anyway. The living water seals us in the Spirit and nothing...

It’s by grace, and only by grace that Jacob makes it to the well and to the banks of the Jabbok river. It’s by grace, and only by grace, that the conniving, heel-grabbing, con-artist extraordinaire receives the name that names the nation: Israel. It’s by grace, and only by grace, that this flawed and fantastic figure fathers the twelve tribes of Israel and is the many-times great-grandfather of Je...

From his very first sermon Jesus identifies the work of the Lord with rescue, release, and relief. And the rest of the New Testament is ripe with such stories! Jesus delivers people from their captivity to demons, illness, loneliness, death, and isolation. The Holy Spirit delivers the disciples from captivity to preconceived notions and literal prisons. And, as we say in the liturgy, God delivers...

One of the most compelling and evergreen reasons to follow Jesus is that discipleship is playful. There’s a dance to the life of faith and it’s fun, or at least, its supposed to be. I know a pastor’s whose church’s motto is: We take Jesus seriously, but not ourselves. Even Karl Barth noted that one of the truest tests of faith isn’t whether or not we can laugh, but whether or not we can laugh at o...

Dave Zahl writes, “The very notion of a weekly Sabbath breaks the twenty-four-seven cycle of more and reminds us that we are God’s treasured children, not slaves to the ever-mounting demands of the pharaohs in our lives.” To anyone who feels like they can’t keep up, slowing down is a relief. Notably, according to Genesis, to be made in God’s image is to be a person who needs rest. And, according t...

When Jesus commands the disciples to be like children, he’s telling us to recognize how much we’re like children no matter how old we actually are. Because the truth, the inconvenient truth, is that we don’t have it all together. Most of us are just barely scraping by and we need all the help we can get. If our standing in the world is based entirely on what we can do and achieve, then the status...

We're all obsessed with control and we tend to mask it under the guise of efficiency. We adopt and adapt new behaviors and practices that promise order in a world out of control. But it is precisely from the burden of control that we need relief. We don’t need better ways to control because, as Dave Zahl notes, “the problem with control as the be-all and end-all of existence is that [all the thing...

Salvation has personal, domestic, social, economic, and theological dimensions. Salvation, in the New Testament, is the same word for health and well-being. There’s more than just heaven at stake here. Or, perhaps better but, heaven is at stake here and now. Jesus says salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house because he, himself, is salvation in the flesh. He is wholeness and saving and everything e...

All of us have some moment we would redo if given the chance, some past decision or action or utterance that we would take back if we could. Our pasts exert pressure on us in the present. Sure, we can become very good at moving on or pretending we’ve moved on, but the truth of us, what we’ve done or left undone, never really leaves us. Regret is real. Which is why forgiveness is so important. Forg...

The prodigal perfectly proclaims the paradox of the gospel: Jesus dies and is resurrected for us whether we deserve it or not. Like the younger brother, we don’t even have to apologize before our heavenly Father is tackling us in the streets of life with love. And like the older brother, we don’t have to do anything to earn an invitation to the party, save for leaving our judgments and self-righte...

Hosea’s life becomes the parable of his preaching. Gomer, Hosea’s wife, mother of his three oddly named children, whom he loves and cherishes, is not faithful to him. Her adultery is not something hidden away, it’s a known element among the whole community. And so Hosea does as the law commands, he sends her away. The prophet Hosea thus meditates on what it’s like to lose a partner, to have a prom...

It’s not too late to change your mind It’s not too late for the truth this time It’s not too late to fall on your knees It’s not to late for apologies It’s not too late to come clean To face all the fallout that there might be And it’s not too late to understand Grace is more than a concept to believe in It’s something more real than your beating heart And it runs to the depths of where you are It...

When healing comes, its usually quiet and unexpected and surprising. Sometimes it requires a crack in the sidewalk before the root of healing can take hold. But when it does, it is the difference that makes all the difference in the world.

Elijah climbs the mountain on a hope and a prayer, looking for a theophany. He comes looking for fire, wind, smoke, and earthquake, a decisive declaration of the divine. But he discovers the truth is a cave. Elijah is met by God in the silence. Elijah delivers more fireworks than all of the other prophets put together, but maybe God speaks in silence to Elijah because Elijah needs to know, needs t...

One day, in the city of David, shadows darken as a cross is raised. Upon which is nailed the last king to come from the line of David. What does God do with us sinners gathering at the foot of the cross? What does God do with us Davids who take and break and sin and suffer? My sin, oh the bliss, of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no mor...

There’s only once church that matters, and it’s not a church that’s wealthy, or powerful, or prestigious, or bursting at the seems, or filled with acclaim. The only church that matters is a church that looks like Jesus. Jesus, the tiny vulnerable baby who is totally dependent on others. Jesus, the young child ready to challenge the status quo of those who have lingered too long in the temples of y...

Idolatry is real and it is more destructive than anything we can imagine. Idolatry is believing that social media is actually social when it fact is is constantly tearing us apart. Idolatry is believing the number at the bottom of our bank statements is indicative of our true worth and value in the world. Idolatry is believing that if our kids get on the right team, or the right score on a test, o...

Saint Augustine said, “You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken, and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love.” In other words, we come together to be blessed in order that we become blessings to others.