We look happy. And we are. But when a friend called this morning and was like, “great photos of you and Eric this weekend!” and all I could think was, you have no idea what shit-show this week has been for me.

I’ve been convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’ lavish blessing of the people around him on that hillside who his world—like ours—didn’t seem to have much time for: people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance.

We had our Synod Assembly yearly meeting with the bishop of all clergy and lay leaders and I am aware of how exhausted the clergy are right now. (And I am sure… all other helping professions.) So here is a blessing for my colleagues.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor (bathos) the deep, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Herod, who is a ruler on a throne of power, and Joseph who is a peasant in an unconventional marriage. One man is powerful and one man is not. And yet the text only describes one of these men as being afraid. 

A friend of mine, who grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, told me that his people’s practice is to not speak the name of the dead for a year. Only after twelve months of their name remaining unsaid are the rituals for gathering loved ones and telling stories undertaken.

  House for All Sinners & Saints was only about a year old when I took a Sunday morning phone call from a young parishioner who had gone home to Grand Rapids for a weekend visit. I …

How do we allow for who we are now and allow for who others are as well. How do we remember to show the curiosity toward our friends that we need for others to show toward us. How do we not treat others as if they are the same, when of course they are not?

I’ve always assumed that the grief Mary Magdalen expresses at Jesus’ tomb had a particularity to it. We know that he had cast seven demons out of her and that she supported his ministry out of her own purse. I do not know what it is like to be a woman 2,000 years ago who was the village demoniac, but I cannot imagine it was a pleasure.

The following sermon was given for my siblings at Montview Presbyterian Church, one of the three local worshipping communities I am affiliated with here in Denver. (The other two being St John’s Episcopal Cathedral and New Beginnings, a Lutheran church that meets within the walls of the Women’s Prison.

Forget the selfies and social media updates of everyone at their best, three-time New York Times best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new podcast, The Confessional, invites guests to share stories about times they were at their worst. Guests talk honestly about what led to that moment, what they learned from it, and how they changed as a result. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran Pastor and the founder of House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado.

  Negative messages about sex come from all corners of society: from the church, from the media, from our own families. As a result, countless people have suffered pain, guilt, and judgment. In this instant bestseller, Nadia …

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber on how she experienced a divine intervention that changed her view of God from being one she feared to one that symbolizes grace.

White lies can cover your ass, but, warns Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, they start to cover up the real you, too

And this is it. This is the life we get here on earth. We get to give away what we receive. We get to believe in each other. We get to forgive and be forgiven. We get to love imperfectly. And we never know what effect it will have for years to come. And all of  it…all of  it is completely worth it.

I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.

God’s grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word … it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit.

Now a New York Times bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term “pastrix”(pronounced “pas-triks,” a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.

It’s the House for all Sinners and Saints in Denver, a widely unconventional congregation led by Evangelical Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. She told correspondent Lucky Severson her language, teaching and tattoos symbolize her acceptance of everyone, and they of her. Their church is thriving.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber calls the #Metoo movement the apocalypse—in a good way

In Accidental Saints”, New York Times best-selling au­thor Nadia Bolz-Weber invites readers into a surprising encounter with what she calls “a religious but not-so-spiritual life.” Tattooed, angry and profane, this former standup comic turned pastor stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve. But God keeps showing up in the least likely of people—a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious Bishop and a gun-toting member of the NRA.