This is one of those texts with which people are not sure what to do. It is likely that a lot of churches will shy away from it. Or it is one that a church might triple down on and receive the wrong message (“As the army of Christ, we are at war with everyone and everything in this world!”). It’s a tough one. The text definitely has an edge as it reaches its crescendo. Jesus says that he didn’t come to bring peace. Rather he came to bring a sword that would sever the ties within one’s family. In fact, if you want to follow Jesus then you need to hate your own family.

It is one of those moments of jarring dissonance. Much of the gospel message aims to bring the Hope of God to fruition. There is a desire for justice, peace, and a love unlike that which the world has ever experienced. So when Jesus says that he came to set sons against fathers, daughters against mothers, and so on then we find ourselves clearing out our ears in hopes that we didn’t hear him correctly. It kind of seems antithetical to what he teaches. Does he really want his followers to go to war with their families?

I am writing this as I sit at my parents’ kitchen table in South Carolina. I am fortunate that I have parents who have been there for me from the beginning and are still here for me now. Yesterday at breakfast, Mom asked the loaded question of how I was doing and I could answer in full honesty because I knew she truly wanted to know and I had no fear that my response would not scare her off. I do not know where I would be without these two loving people.

So does Jesus want me to hate them? No, of course not.

Jun 18
Jun 18 bwahaha

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

The old saying goes that if you want to make God laugh, tell God about your plans. Apparently the reverse is true: if God wants to make us laugh, then telling us the plan is the way to go. That is the story here. Three mysterious visitors visit Abraham and Sarah and tell them that the very, very, very old couple is going to have a baby. Sarah overhears this ludicrous plan and laughs.

Yet God gets the last laugh. Sarah has a baby and they name him Isaac which means, “One who laughs or rejoices.” The skeptical chuckle at the seemingly outlandish turned into the giddy laughter of “How the heck did we get so lucky?” It is two people cracking up because things are ridiculously wonderful.

There is not much profound to add to the story except that I wish that we found more opportunities for laughter within the church. There are different ways that we experience the love and grace of God, but one of the ways is an unbridled joy that often does not get expressed in church. Come to think of it, that kind of joy does not often get expressed in our culture generally.

Jun 11
Jun 11 Leaps of Faith: Leave it Behind

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

“Follow me.”

It seems really, really simple. In some ways it is. One of the lyrics that feels like it came preloaded in my memory is “I have decided to follow Jesus / I have decided to follow Jesus / I have decided to follow Jesus / No turning back / No turning back.” As a kid, following Jesus felt simple because the world is a lot less complicated. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Do you feel sorry for the wrong you’ve done and want to try to do what’s right? Then let’s go.

And even all these years later? Some days, it still feels kind of simple. Not simple as in easy but simple as in I still think Jesus is the best way we can encounter God, I am sorry for the wrong I have done, and I do want to try to do what’s right. Sign me up. Let’s go.

Yet other days I am reminded that biblically speaking, this whole “Follow me” business requires more than sign me up and let’s go.

Jun 3

Jun 3 Leaps of Faith: Falling Upward

Chris Cox

If you were to ask me the question of what is my favorite movie, I would not be able to give you a straight answer. There are so many movies that I love and it all really depends on my mood. It could be anything from WALL-E, one of the Star Wars films, Chariots of Fire, The Truman Show, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, or so many others. But my favorite movie scene? That one is easy.

Miles Morales has felt a sense of calling. Or rather calling in the form of genetically altered arachnid has bit him. Yet like most of us, Miles is unsure of whether or not he is worthy of that calling. Using his newfound powers, he sticks to the side of a skyscraper high above New York City. In his head, both he and we hear the counsel of his family and mentors. The last voice he hears belongs to Peter B. Parker who tells Miles that he won’t know when he is ready; it’s a leap of faith.

With that, Miles jumps. The glass where his fingers had stuck to the skyscraper shatter off the building. He begins to fall to the city below and in a gorgeously iconic shot forever associated with this film, the camera flips upside down and it looks like Miles is ascending. As the music swells, the kid from Brooklyn lets his web shooters fly and he begins to swing, flip, and leap through the streets below. The doubts and the questions fly off of him and even though he is wearing a mask, joy radiates off of him. Miles is born again and he has a new name: Spider-Man.

May 31
May 31 40

Chris Cox

I have been trying to write a post for over a week about turning forty. Yet every time I reach down the well is…not dry, but weird. I am still in this season where I feel like I am holding my emotions at arm’s length. I worry if I get sad then I won’t stop crying and if I get angry then I’ll want to burn everything down. Not really a great way to go through life! Because I would really like to move through life without flinching at myself; to own the courage that landed me in this place, to have the joy of God’s salvation restored to me.

Human beings are funny creatures in that we put far too much stock in numbers that end with fives and zeroes. As I approached 40, I thought about the other times that I entered a new decade. When I was 10, I was still a kid and that’s a pretty good gig. When I was 20, I was discovering myself in college and starting to fall in love with the woman who would become my wife. When I was 30, we had recently had our second son and I was nearing completing my M. Div. in seminary. Each milestone was a marker of progress and the border of a new frontier. At 40? Well, I’m semi-employed and staring down a chasm of uncertainty deeper and darker than any I’ve encountered in my adult life.

Bible nerd that I am, I have been preoccupied with the Fortieth Psalm for some time. “I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” There is a hope there that resonates deep within me. Of course then I also hear Bono plaintively wail “How long to sing this song?” and I wonder that too.

May 18

May 18 To Jim on his 13th Birthday

Chris Cox

How are you thirteen? Yes, as we have discussed the numerous times you have excitedly asked whether I believed you were going to be a teenager, I technically know how. I was there when you were born and that was thirteen years ago today. It’s easy to connect the dots and know how we got here. And at the same time it seems like some kind of magic that the 6 pound, 8 ounce child that I first held in my arms in that Spartanburg hospital is the young man who is falling asleep in this room tonight.

Well, not quite falling asleep. You just asked me what you could buy with the $20 Nintendo gift card you got from your aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Because as far as your interests are concerned, you have completely followed your father down the nerdy rabbit hole. For the last week, our home has been completely consumed by the newest Zelda game. The music that you selected for the ride to school this morning was the Star Wars playlist and you will just randomly say to me, “Dad, Star Wars is pretty great, isn’t it?” You have devoured virtually every one of my graphic novels that I have allowed you to read, eagerly anticipate the latest issue of World’s Finest, and are a walking encyclopedia of DC Comics minutiae. So you’re welcome. Or I’m sorry. Not sure which it is yet. In all seriousness, I love it. It is so much fun to watch your imagination soar with all of these stories that I also love.

May 4
May 4 The Star Wars Film Tiers & Other Far, Far Away Miscellany

Chris Cox

May 4th is a good day. We took a pun (“May the fourth be with you”) and created an unofficial holiday out of it. In honor of Star Wars Day, I decided to do what people on the internet love to do: make lists about completely subjective things. The main event is my Tier Ranking for Star Wars films. People will often ask me what my favorite Star Wars movie is and that is actually a difficult question to answer. Partly because my favorite can change with whichever movie I am watching and partly because only a Sith deals in absolutes. Over the years, I have organized the Skywalker Saga (plus the two Star Wars Story movies) into 5 tiers. For the first time I am publishing it so the internet can tell me I’m wrong.

Tier 1: The Best of the Best
Episode IV - A New Hope
Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

Tier 2: Great Movies That I Regularly Think Should Be in Tier 1 When I Watch Them
Rogue One
Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
Episode VII - The Force Awakens

May 3
May 3 Once more into the wilderness

Chris Cox

There has been little rhythm to my life in the last two months. No longer working at a church, there have been no liturgical or functional ecclesial patterns for me to follow. The places I would normally go and many of the people that I talked to and shared my days with have kind of evaporated from my life. There have been moments when it has been a bit unnerving and I am feeling pretty good if I keep myself under three existential crises per week.

The irony is we are in the fifth week of Easter, but I feel like I have tumbled backwards through time and am stuck in Lent. There have been a lot of ashes and dust and remembering that everything is finite and lots of things suck. Cognitively, I know about resurrection and new life, but it feels like wilderness. I am trying to figure out again where I fit in and what I am supposed to do.

I am trying to remind myself that this experience is not a sign of failure. Most of us go on these metaphorical wilderness expeditions in our lives; usually we do so many different times. I am trying to remember that I come from a family of itinerant ministers and carnies. That I follow a faith of nomads and wanderers. Heck, Jesus spent time in the wilderness and told his followers that he did not even have a place to lay his head. When the Israelites spent four decades rambling about, God stayed out in the wilderness with them in a tent.

Apr 7
Apr 7 Stories and Compassion

Chris Cox

“All that is holding us together [is] stories and compassion.”
-Anne Lamott quoting Barry Lopez, Stitches, 23

This last month has been dark for a myriad of reasons. Holding on to hope sometimes feels like trying to hang tight to a fraying rope in a monsoon. Compassion—those moments that remind me that I am not alone—will always be the act that keeps me holding on. When I talk with my wife or get a phone call from a family member or a hug from someone I run into in town, it’s a needed reminder that this too shall pass.

The inverse is also true. When you are in a troubled time and you feel alone then it seems like you will be falling in the abyss forever. Which is tough because none of us can experience that reassuring compassion all the time. Loved ones can’t check on you constantly; they work, they have lives. Friends may not know what to say. Thank God, then, for stories which are the other thing that I have found to have held me together these last few weeks.

When I was a kid, Superman comics were a refuge for me. I didn’t really fit in at school. I had friends, but there was a pervasive sense of unbelonging. It’s that not too uncommon adolescent feeling that you don’t matter. Yet when I journeyed to Metropolis via my local comic book store, I was transported to a world where good always triumphed over evil. A place where the most powerful individual was also the most humble and kind. It was a world in which the every person and even a cat up a tree mattered. I wanted that world to be true. I still want that world to be true.

Apr 6
Apr 6 Maundy Thursday

Chris Cox

The flickering of lights in the upper room cast shadows all around. They were gathered for a meal, but a weight hung over the proceedings. The conversation did not crackle the same way. The laughter was nervous. This was unusual. Over three years, they had grown into a family; a bickering, loving, motley crew of a family bound by the amazing sights they had witnessed and their teacher. Yet they looked now at his face and felt in their bones that it was all coming to an end.

Then Jesus did something unusual, but to be honest, the unusual was actually fairly ordinary with him. He wrapped a towel around his waist and filled a basin with water. Then he knelt before each of them and washed their feet. Feet caked in dirt and mud mixed with cuts and sores. Feet that had followed him all over the Palestinian countryside. It was servant’s work, not something fit for a rabbi, much less a messiah or God’s own son.

Yet there he was kneeling before each of his students; including the one who he knew would walk out the door in a moment to betray him. He washed their feet clean and told them that was what they were to do. He was not a teacher who simply told them to serve one another from high upon a hill. He knelt down and showed them what it meant to serve and love one another, even those considered enemies. And he told them, he told us, that love was the true mark of being his follower.

June 15, 2026

Dangerous Memories and Unfinished Futures

“’Do this in remembrance of me.’ Jesus invites you to commemorate his betrayal, death, and resurrection. His invitation makes space for ‘dangerous memory,’ a memory that, as post-Holocaust Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz tells us, ‘puts pressure on and questions our present because in it we remember an unfinished future.’ Memory can unsettle the unreconciled present and open up a future for the hopeless and the forgotten, the failed and the oppressed….Remembering keeps the ghosts alive so that they may warn and comfort, haunt and inspire the living: dangerous memories that rush toward an unfinished future. Making the absent present allows for processing grief, strengthening commitments, and opening up vision. Such remembrance commits you to work for a future for those who have been forgotten, erased, and left behind.”
-Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This, 88, 89

I believe that most of us experience an internal tug-of-war between the past and the future. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ titular demon supervisor advises his underling Wormwood that one of best ways to keep a human from doing good is to keep them ping-ponging between those two times that are not the present. One keeps trying to recapture or reach towards moments that are mist. It can keep a person from doing something.

The quote above resonates with me because it harnesses the past and unfinished future into a catalyst that animates our present. We remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because it means something today and compels us to presently work for the Good that is already here, but also not yet. We remember the hope and pain of the past to do something that help us take some sort of step each and every day. We realize that the hope which exists within the gospel story is not yet fully realized. Many people are still being left behind and forgotten. The realization, as the theologian Metz states, puts pressure and questions on the present.

June 1, 2026

First Day of Pride

Being a parent forces you to take a close look at yourself. Of course, you don’t have to be a parent to self-examine, but there is something about the reality that another living human is under your care and protection for the foreseeable future that makes you take stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs. For example, I used to think I was a far more patient person before I had kids; like superhumanly patient. And then a crying toddler shows you the folly of that belief. On the flip side, time has moved on and having two teenagers affirms that, yes, I am ridiculously patient and that has been a strength as a parent.

Among many other reorienting moments that came with parenthood was full acceptance of our LGBTQ+ siblings. That process began many years earlier. As someone who studied religion, I knew that the biblical case against these individuals was not nearly as airtight as I was previously led to believe. Science and stories from people gave strong indication that this life was not a choice. And I had met gay and lesbian folks who were good people. The old axiom that you will know a tree by its fruit applies here.

But the tipping point was holding a tiny infant who I loved more than I thought possible and knowing that I never wanted him to be ashamed of who he is. I did not want a potential future in which one of my children came out as something other than heterosexual with the fear that we would not love them. Not accepting my child was not even conceivably on the table. So we raised our kids to know that LGBTQ+ were beloved members of God’s creation.

May 24, 2026

Not a Defeat If You Can Find a Way to Laugh About It

There is this typical ice breaker question that is some variation of “If you could have dinner with anyone famous living or dead, who would it be?” And one of my steadfast answers for almost twenty years has been Stephen Colbert. Through both The Colbert Report and The Late Show, he has given hours upon hours of laughter and more than enough on which to ponder. I feel like we’d have a lot to talk about since we are both unabashed nerds, products of the Palmetto State, and he just seems like a good hang.

Beyond all of that, I appreciate how honestly and humbly Colbert approaches his faith. There have been numerous times over the years when his comedy and conversations take a turn into the spiritual that is challenging and convicting. I remember an episode of The Colbert Report where one minute he was making a joke about Ben Franklin’s predilection for French prostitutes and then organically made his way to the following quote:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

Then there are the interviews that he has conducted on The Late Show. Colbert has said that he sort of found the heart of his show when he had a conversation with then-Vice President Biden about grief. Indeed the loss of his father and brothers at a young age has led him to create an empathetic space to explore loss in the midst of celebrities promoting their most recent projects (my mind immediately comes to a conversation that he had with Andrew Garfield about the loss of the actor’s mother).

May 21, 2026

While I Breathe, I Hope

On the way to school, the youngest burrowed his head into my arm. “I don’t like that you’re getting older.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re one year closer to death.”

“There it is.” That’s my kid. Very sweet. Very sensitive. Brutally, bordering on inappropriately blunt. “Well, it’s better than the alternative.”

“Getting younger?” He thinks for a second. “Oh…dying.”

“Yeah, you can’t get younger.” I scratch him on the head. “And hopefully I have a ways to go. Ideally, I’ll still be kicking around when you turn 43.”

“You’ll be 73. So that’s reasonable”

“Yeah.”

“Granddad will be 103.”

“Less likely. But maybe. I hope he is as long as he’s happy.”

“And healthy. Happy, healthy, and alive.” Then he goes into a bit from an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which makes me laugh.

Birthdays, as my oldest posited this morning, are kind of weird when you get older. Or at least they morph into something different from the second Christmas-esque excitement when you’re a kid. Because there does get to be that point where it creeps into your mind that you are a year closer to death. And that forces you take stock of your life which is a hit-or-miss affair due to being human’s volatility.

May 18, 2026

To Jim on his 16th Birthday

One day last week, I picked you up from school after took one of your AP exams and then I moved over to the passenger seat so you could practice driving. In the midst of being hyper vigilant about your speed, how quickly you stopped, how close you were to the side of the road, and what every single other car on the road was doing, I had a distinct moment of looking over at you and realizing that so much is changing. And we’re only at the start.

Today you turn 16. You are about to wrap up your sophomore year of high school. You’ll take a driver’s license test in just a few weeks. We have three more summers before you go off to college. There are times it seems like yesterday when you were sitting in the living room watching cartoons with a couple of dozen superhero toys. There are times it seems like last week when you were a newborn sleeping in my arms.

The feeling of you being 16 is kind of like being the passenger in the car while you are driving. I have a ton of confidence in you and trust you. And I worry about your lack of experience in a big, sometimes frightening world and whether I have taught you well enough. I am wary of everyone else on the road. I wonder if you are going too fast even though you are going an appropriate speed and I am the one who encouraged you not to go as slow in the first place. It is all very exciting, humbling, frightening, and new.

April 21, 2026

What Nintendo Can Teach the Church

Christmas 1988. My brother Taylor and I receive the Nintendo Entertainment System packaged with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and we have been fans ever since. We have grown up with the Japanese company’s gaming systems; the adventures of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Donkey and Diddy Kong, and more have been a consistent presence in our lives. Even though we are in three different states now as adults, Taylor, my sister Shari, myself, and our kids will get together every so often and play Mario Kart online. We love Nintendo, which is a weird thing to say about a corporation that makes a billion dollars but it is what it is.

With all that said, I loved the Keza MacDonald’s book Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play. Not only is it an engaging journey through video game history through the lens of Nintendo’s iconic (and less iconic) franchises, but the book also has a great deal to say about creativity, community, and culture. In fact, it is that last idea that got me thinking about how this video game company can teach the church (or any other organization) even as I am a bit of an outsider to that world presently.

Here is one of two quotes that jumped out at me from the chapter “Splatoon” which looks at how Nintendo continues innovate and create over 40 years into its video game endeavors:

April 12, 2026

Easter Orphans, A Lost Cat, and A Tightrope Called Hope

“Happy Easter?”

That is the first thing EA said to me as I woke up on Easter morning. I stretched and rubbed my eyes.

“I still believe in Jesus. It’s just the church that I’m not sure about.”

Some context: This was the first Easter in our 20+ years of marriage (and likely in either of our lives) in which we did not have a church to attend. It’s been about a year since we’ve gone to church as a family. Honestly, the church that we attended after I stepped down from working in a congregation had a tall order to tend to our hurting family. It was a good group of people, but the services and community never really clicked with our boys. Then early last year, I got moved to a Sunday morning shift. EA tried for a bit to go by herself but it wasn’t what she needed. In the end, I was gone for about eight months before anyone in the church really noticed and we decided to take a break.

I acknowledge my uncertainty about the church is a bit over-dramatic. Of course, there are great churches out there. There are wonderful people in congregations where my family and I have experienced the most pain. It’s akin to writing off burritos for life because you got violent food poisoning from one (This is based on a true story; I have not written off burritos just that particular Chipotle location). But the church hurt is real. As is the MAGA-fication of the denomination in which I grew up that feels so antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. So we don’t have a place to call home and it’s weird and sad and understandable.

April 1, 2026

Lent Fail

Absurdist Note: I really want to add “Woo-ooh!” after the title. If you know, you know.

I have not pulled off this year’s Lenten disciplines the way that I set out to. When this 40 day period began, I set out to take on this fasts/spiritual practices:

Stop drinking Coca-Cola
Stop eating French fries
Stop playing Disney Solitaire on my phone
Do a daily devotional from Richard Rohr’s Wondrous Encounters
Write a blog five days a week

When the war in Iran began and threw another log on the fire that is the world, it pained me both spiritually and physically. One of the ways that played out was headaches and since headaches were already part of removing the caffeine of Coca-Cola from my life, I decided I probably shouldn’t compound a problem and began drinking Coke again. I have had French fries a few times; not many, mind you, but enough to break up the fast. There have been several multiple day stretches where I did not do my devotional. And my efforts to blog five times a week quickly fell by the wayside. I have managed to keep from playing Disney Solitaire, but that still puts my Lenten average in Mendoza Line territory.

March 29, 2026

An Awkward Parade (Revisited)

Several hundred, some may say several thousand, years worth of anticipation hung thick in the air. Like summer humidity that sticks to your shirt the second you step outside, you couldn’t avoid it if you wanted to. Especially not during Passover week.

There was a guy making his way into Jerusalem; a guy claiming to be the Messiah. This was nothing new. He would not be the first that people claimed would save us. There had been tons of guys going around saying that they were the One; saying that they were going to show Rome what’s what. So a would-be messiah making his way to Jerusalem was about as common as a singer-songwriter making their way to Nashville.

But this felt different. He seemed different. Now there was a fair amount of debate whether he was the right or wrong kind of different. For starters, word got out that he had tried to keep a lot of the messiah talk and even tales of his miracles under wraps. But it is difficult to keep those kind of stories quiet: dead men walking, the blind seeing, demons plunging a herd of pigs over a cliff, and thousands fed from a lunch meant for a single kid. You can tell people to keep that hush-hush all you want, but it’s not going to happen.

March 24, 2026

Blooming Broken Branches

In front of our house there is a branch that is barely hanging on to its tree. The limb is a casualty of the ice storm that tore Nashville earlier this year. As we cleaned up the debris afterwards, we tried to tear it off the tree as we did with a few other broken branches out front. But this branch was more stubborn than the others. So even though it is hanging on by a thread and nearly perpendicular with the ground, it remains as a reminder of a storm.

Now that branch is in bloom. Still hanging on by a thread, still touching the ground but now with flowers and the buds of leaves. It was a surprise at first. We did not really expect that branch to still be alive as it was barely connected to its source. But it is very much alive and now a symbol of beautiful tenacity. Even though it looks askew, I cannot imagine trying to rip that branch from its tree and I don’t think my sons would let me if I wanted to.