BELIEVE
I love cast nets. Or more accurately I love the idea of cast nets. I even own one. I’ve always had trouble with basic geometry. I have a hard time remembering the difference between radius and diameter, the result is that I have a cast net that is twice the size of what I intended […]
CALLING
We all have ears to hear, but we don’t always hear. Hearing, really hearing is really hard. Sometimes we don’t know what we are hearing. The other day our daughters were talking about a blind dance instructor. And I said, “Your dance instructor is blind?” They both looked at me and said “Blond dad, not […]
Getting Ready
I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that God is coming over for supper at your place tonight! The bad news is that God is coming over for supper at your place tonight. Think about it. How do we get ready for a visit from the Almighty? […]
SUMMER IS NEAR
I love figs. I didn’t care for them as a child. But I love them now, and I love the crazy branchy trees that they grow on, dropping sticky sap and fruit all over everything that wanders too close. I have a jar of fig preserves that a friend made and gave to me, it […]
SHOW ME YOUR GLORY
I was 13 years old the year the year that the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. Anybody remember that movie? I’ve had the theme song going through my head for over thirty years now. I loved everything about it, the adventure, the fascinating world we live in, the mystery, the intrigue, […]
Costly Grace
“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” That was the criticism of American Christianity by a theologian named Richard Niebuhr. Let’s hear that again. “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment […]
THE MEANS OF GRACE
I like to say that I have pedestrian habits. I like to go running and walking. Since cell phones and texting while driving have become so common place I’ve had to pay extra attention for distracted drivers. Every week or two I have to dodge a car whose driver is busy paying attention to something […]
MOSES
Beginnings and endings. We make a big deal about beginnings and endings. Births. Deaths. Anniversaries. Memorials. Christmas and Good Friday. Genesis and Revelation. Parting the Red Sea and crossing over Jordan into the Promised Land. Today is a beginning. The beginning of the story of Moses, the one who would be the Law […]
DREAMER
All families are dysfunctional. Especially God’s family. I have always found comfort and encouragement in this biblical truth. Today and next Sunday we hear some of the story of Joseph, the dreamer, his family, his angry brothers and the beginnings of God bringing good news to a world full of bad news. This story […]
TOMATO TREE
We used to eat a lot of homemade sourdough bread. Remember back when bread was good for us? Susan always kept some sourdough starter in the icebox. She would feed it some sugar and mix it with flour and let it rise a couple of times. Sometimes it was my job to put the loaves […]
WEEDS
Sometimes, trying to get rid of weeds causes more harm than good. At our home we are always establishing or maintaining flower beds and vegetable plots. We have a spray can of herbicide we use to stem off any weeds from sneaking into our flower beds, the problem is that we kill other plants as […]
BREATH
I think one of the scariest things is not being able to breathe. Choking, drowning, being smothered, those are my worst nightmares. Watching someone struggling to breathe. That is a hard thing. God breathes into the man made of dust and he comes alive. The psalm this morning says it best, “You take away their […]
WAITING
I’m not very good at waiting. Which is a shame, since so much of life is about waiting, about how we go about waiting. Waiting in line. Waiting for the day to end, to hear back word about a new job, a test result, about an appointment. Waiting for someone to come home. Waiting to […]
BREAKFAST IN HELL
I once ate breakfast in hell. Technically it was Gehenna, a valley on the edge of Jerusalem that used to be the garbage pit for the city back in the old days. It’s a park now. I ate a sesame bagel there. Nice place. Jesus sometimes spoke of Gehenna as a place of torment in […]
ROOM
Years ago Grace Church suffered the betrayal and grief of embezzlement. A book keeper from the diocese made many trips to the parish to help untangle the finances. During that time she worked closely with a small group of parishioners. As it turned out the book keeper was going through a great deal of grief […]
SHEPERDESS
Today is one of those symbolically loaded Sundays. It is Good Shepherd Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter. It is also Mother’s Day. One of the earliest stories of our faith is of Rachel, the wife of Jacob. She was a shepherd. When Jacob first met her she was tending sheep. She was the mother […]
THE WALK
I have pedestrian habits. I like to walk, or run, or hike, sometimes ride a bike. I can feel and taste the air and the light. I see things that I miss otherwise, see other people, buildings, plants, animals. I saw two possum the other morning. I stopped and watched them wander around. They almost […]
BELIEVE
The perfect mystery. A dead body found in a locked room that only locks from the inside. Somehow murder was committed. Mystery buffs call this a locked door mystery. It is one of the classic scenarios of the murder mystery genre. A locked room that keeps the living out and the dead inside. Our […]
Fear and Great Joy
Fear and great joy. Fear because a dead man is walking about. Joy because he has been raised. Fear because the earth quakes. Joy because the stone is rolled back. Fear because the angel descends like lightening. Joy because of the message, “Do not be afraid.” Fear because the soldiers of empire shook and became […]
INSCRUTABLE
He is elevated as the king by being mocked. He is exalted as our Lord by being lifted up on the cross. His coronation as the ruler of all is his crucifixion. He sits in judgment by being the one who is judged. He is all that is true because he is rejected. He is […]
WISE BONES
You are going to die. I am going to die. We are all on our way out the door. Some day the human species will be extinct. Maybe our bones will be put on display in a museum, next to the Columbian Mammoth. Perhaps a scripture quote will be put next to us, instead […]
NOW I SEE
You must know someone like him He was tall and strong and lean With a body like a greyhound And a mind so sharp and keen But his heart, just like a laurel, Grew twisted round itself Till almost everything he did Caused pain to someone else It’s not just what you’re born with It’s […]
BY NIGHT
I like fire. One of my favorite lines in the prayer book is, “In the darkness fire is kindled.” That is the rubric, the instructions, for how to begin the Great Vigil of Easter. In the night between sunset Saturday night and sunrise Easter morning we kindle a fire in the front yard of the […]
TEMPTED
The revival preacher is in town. He starts his sermon. “Brothers and sisters, what should we do with Sin?” A young boy in the back pew looks around wondering why the grownups don’t answer, he realizes they don’t know. The boy feels bad for preacher, he tries to help, he mouths quietly. “We don’t know.” […]