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  Wednesday – 10 th Week of Ordinary Time    Reading – 1Kings 18:20-39 A Sense of Humor Statue of Elijah, Mt. Carmel I admit it!   My sense of humor is not for everyone.   It can be biting, sarcastic, incredibly corny and full of puns, and, in the words of many of my friends, “I don’t get it”.   No matter what, given all that the world is going through right now with war, violence on innocent children, and outright bigotry and hatred, we all could use something to make us smile. And I think God delivers exactly that in today’s first reading.   It is a contest between Elijah and 450 prophets for the false god Baal, a battle to determine which god is the true one! Baal’s prophets erect an altar and do everything, including cutting themselves, in an effort to call down their god to send down fire to consume their sacrifice, all to no avail.   And then Elijah taunts them mercilessly!   Call out louder; maybe your god is asleep!   Ma...
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  Tuesday – 10 th Week in Ordinary Time Gospel – Matthew5:13-19 Let’s Get Cooking! Spice Shop in Jerusalem Ginger and I watch a lot of food shows, most of them cooking competitions like Top Chef, Food Network Star, Hell’s Kitchen and Chopped.   And with all of those shows, it boggles the mind how often someone gets booted off the competition because their dish “lacked flavor”, because their dish either lacked or needed just another pinch of salt! I have to admit I like my share of salt.   To Ginger’s chagrin, I am always adding more salt to the dish.   I recall someone once saying that they would never trust anyone who salted their food before they even tasted it.   To each his own, I guess. We tend to forget how important salt was in the ancient world.   Yes, it was used to season food and to enhance or bring out the innate flavor of the dish.   But it was also used as a preservative.   At a time of no refrigeration or freezing, that was...
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  Monday – 10 th Week in Ordinary Time Gospel – Matthew 5:1-12 Go Tell it on the Mountain Front Porch, TN This is an all too familiar Gospel reading – the Beatitudes!   Whenever my Scripture classes got to this passage, I always joked that these should be the “A” attitudes, not the “B’ attitudes!   These are the ideal of how we should act.   Yeah, I know, corny!   It’s what I do! But consider today not just WHAT Jesus says today; consider WHERE He preaches.   On a mountain top!   That should be a familiar setting.   After the Flood, Noah and the ark settle on Mount Ararat where Noah offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.   Abram takes Isaac to the mountain top to sacrifice him and instead God extends to Abram the first covenant.   It is on Mt. Sinai that God give Moses the tablets of the Law.   The Jews went up to Jerusalem to the Mount to worship in the Temple.   Many times, Jesus went off to a mountain to be alon...
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