A lot of people are not going to approve of your homily this week. Just know this ahead of time and brace yourself. Matthew is not interested in making you popular in the pulpit apart from a few nice Christmas stories anyway.

What does it mean to be saved? This is an important question to ask, because it’s a question that modern Christians are expected to answer at a moment’s notice. Are you saved? Am I?

Today the world commemorates what remains the ultimate demonstration of worldly might and power: the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States in 1945.

Looking for buried treasure was a big pastime for kids in my neighborhood 40 years ago. Not that there was likely to be much treasure in the coalfields of central Pennsylvania. That didn’t keep us from looking and hoping, though.

Here’s my latest idea for our T-shirt-and-bumper-sticker culture: “Those who are just must be kind.” OK, it’s not my idea; the Wisdom writer came up with it first.

Good parents are, by nature or necessity, persistent people. They call and call us to the dinner table until we straggle in. They nag us about our homework until the last worksheet is covered with the appropriate words and numbers.

Most of us have our hands full just taking care of what’s right in front of us. I can’t remember the last time I woke up in the morning, stretched and yawned and wondered what the day might bring.

Loyalty is a quality we value highly. We want our friends to be loyal. We expect our families to be. We hope for some modicum of reliability from bosses or employees. In fact, every meaningful relationship involves loyalty to be viable.

My Audubon friends refer to sparrows as “junk birds.” What this phrase suggests is that sparrows are too common, plentiful, and uninteresting to merit any attention.

A lot of folks are puzzled as to why Jesus asked his disciples not to go into pagan territory or to visit Samaritan towns on their first foray into ministry.