Amadon, James

Rev. James Amadon lives near Seattle, Washington. He enjoys combining his academic training and pastoral experience in his writing. Learn more about the organization he leads, at www.circlewood.online. This essay originally appeared on www.ecodisciple.com.

The twists in our tragic stories (Spring/Summer 2015)

Good preaching attempts to hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The word of God must address our lives as they are lived in the world around us. And yet as I prepare to preach and look at the news, it seems there is one tragedy after another capturing the front page and all the pages in between. There are natural disasters close to home or around the world, and human-made catastrophes bringing pain and suffering to people everywhere. In the natural give and take of the human condition, sometimes we simply can’t help but hurt one another. Tragedy upon tragedy, as regular as the rising and setting of the sun.

Jesus is not just for us (Fall/Winter 2022)

We may think Jesus is all about humanity. If we have eyes to see, the Bible has a lot to say about Jesus’s relationship with animals. Worship services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day tell the story of Jesus’s birth from Luke and Matthew, the two gospels that include it. Churches reenact the story, and many children’s books conclude the telling by depicting the sleeping Savior surrounded by reverent people and curious animals.