The Spirituality of the Blues
Mark Schloneger
(Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, Bessie Smith)[1] Nobody knows you when you’re down and out. That song is by Bessie Smith, nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920’s and 30’s. I listened to the blues as I prepared this message. That’s because I […]
Nagging God
Mark Schloneger
“Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Sometimes, Luke makes things easy for us, or at least he appears to. Before we even get to the parable, before we even read the story, Luke provides us with the moral, the meaning, the golden nugget of […]
Church as Exile
Mark Schloneger
He saw her in the market, a rare breath of beauty amid the misery of his life in the refugee camp. Someone said she was from his village back in Syria, which he fled when a Syrian government plane dropped bombs that destroyed his home. And now, on a hot afternoon two months later, Samah […]
The Parable of the Disgraced Father
Mark Schloneger
For most of my life, I have heard stories about the first house that my parents lived in. It was known to them and their neighbors as The Mengises. Mengis was the last name of the first owners of this house. So, in that rural community in Wayne County, Ohio the Schlonegers lived at the […]
What It Takes
Mark Schloneger
A few years back, a Super Bowl commercial for Doritos and Pepsi Max was pulled before it had the chance to be aired. That’s because a lot of Christians complained that it was too offensive. Letters were written, petitions were circulated, and some vowed never to eat Doritos or drink Pepsi again. Given the controversial […]
The Vineyard of Sour Grapes
Mark Schloneger
The history of Goshen, Indiana, according to Wikipedia: Goshen was platted in 1831. It was named after the Land of Goshen [the place in the Bible that the Egyptian pharaoh of Joseph gave to the Hebrews]. The initial settlers consisted entirely of old stock “Yankee” immigrants, who were descended from the English Puritans who settled […]
Under the Broom Tree
Mark Schloneger
He was tough. He was fierce. And he didn’t suffer fools. He words were not the flowing, flowers of poetry but sharp, stinging slaps to the face. He was Elijah, the Tishbite, from Gilead. And he had received the word of the Lord. Empowered by that word, this man stood alone before royalty, King Ahab, […]
The Lord of Hosts
Mark Schloneger
The great trees of Mamre. This is a significant place in the life of Israel. There is a tradition, cited by the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, that the trees of Mamre are as old as the world itself and another tradition that says these trees mark the spot where the Temple would eventually stand. But […]
Between Two Trees
Mark Schloneger
When I was very young, my family lived in a tall, yellow house in rural Ohio. It seemed like our backyard was carved out from the acres of fields that my uncle farmed. I remember our backyard as an endless meadow of green grass, where I played baseball, caught butterflies, escaped bees, and chased down […]
Holy Disrupted
Mark Schloneger
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. When the day of Pentecost was approaching, they were all together in one place. Sitting. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen.
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