Falling out of Sin
Today we are invited to the observance of a holy Lent. A season set apart, a holy time. How will we hallow these days? We hear of creation falling, of humanity falling, of being a fallen person, of falling into sin. How do we fall into sin? A slow decline, degree by degree? A […]
THIS FOR THAT
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. You knock out my tooth I’ll knock out yours. You take out my eye I’ll take out yours. Reciprocity. This for that. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the physics of human relationships. The lex talionis, the law of retaliation, or limited and […]
BE WHAT YOU ARE
Have you ever lived a lie? Have you ever been someone that you aren’t? It happens so easily. Hiding something. Addiction. Relationships that control and torture. Having to get by at a job that is really needed, but is miserable. Suffering, depression, mental illness? “This is not who I am. Why am I doing this? […]
Follow
The Gospel is always lived out in occupied territory. We return to Matthew’s Gospel this week. Somehow Jesus has survived to adulthood despite King Herod’s plotting. He has been anointed by the Spirit, led up to the wilderness to be tempted and assaulted by the devil, the angels have ministered to him in his recovery […]
ALLURE
What holds our attention? What captures our heart? I am a fan of everything Sherlock Holmes. The original stories, the spin off stories, the old movies and TV shows and the contemporary movies and TV series. There does seem to be a Sherlock Holmes renaissance taking place over the past few years. The fascinating character […]
BEGINNINGS
Beginnings are exciting. The birds hatch in the nest outside the window. Holding a newborn child. Falling in love. Getting married. A new job. Getting well after an illness or injury. Suddenly discovering that you survived something, you don’t know how or why, but you are still here. Discovering the love of God and finding […]
THE FUGITIVE GOD
“A bunch of dirty spies!” That’s what the wise men were called in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, the wonderful story by Barbara Robinson. A bunch of dirty spies! That’s what the bunch of rowdy children in the book called the wise men when they heard the Christmas story for the first time. The Herdmans […]
Christmas 2013
Words. They hold the world together. Words build things. They make things happen. Words also destroy, words inflicted or misspoken or withheld. The Word that creates…everything. The Word that holds all things together, that connects everything, that relates everything to everything else. The hidden, silent, whispered Word that is always speaking this universe into […]
Christmas Eve 2013
So what do you do when the glory of Lord shines around you? Most people run for their lives. Any kind of divine encounter results in an attempt to make space, to get some distance. There is that wonderful story of when Peter was fishing and Jesus told him to cast their nets and […]
THE NAME
I am pregnant. How many stories start like that? What comes next? Every time I heard it I had to sit down and catch my breath, trying not to hyperventilate. The Christmas story in Matthew begins with an at risk pregnancy, a young woman with child who is about to be quietly abandoned. A story […]
IMPOSSIBLE
Like many people one of my most favorite movies is The Princess Bride, it is very funny and easy to enjoy. I notice that it is frequently quoted. At wedding rehearsals I frequently quote the Bishop with the speech impediment when he says, “Have you the wing?” In that movie there is this crazy […]
LIGHT
We love our stained glass. Grace Church has some very good stained glass. Old stained glass. The restoration brought the fullness of their brightness and colors out. My wife Susan and her father used to have a running argument over which are better, icons or stained glass. Which one reveals God better? They would argue […]
STAYING AWAKE
Once I was given tickets to the Russian Ballets’ performance of the Nut Cracker. I was really excited. But, I couldn’t stay awake. My head was nodding and snapping back. I desperately tried to keep my eyes open, I simply couldn’t. I missed most of the show. I embarrassed my date. Or the time I […]
THE KING
What do we do with pain? Illness, grief, anxiety, fear, disappointment? What do we do with that pain? Sometimes hard won wisdom comes to us through pain. Unfortunately, more frequently, we act foolishly and destructively because of pain. Lashing out or lashing inward. Poisoning those around us, poisoning ourselves. All true comedy it is […]
HOLD ON!
A quiet evening in the backyard, just after sunset. The grownups had just gone inside. The neighbors were over for supper. I was a young child, about to go inside to wash my hands and be fed. Just then the horizon filled with light and a massive silent ball of white flame shot across the […]
CHILDREN OF THE RESURRECTION
The poor woman. Imagine waking up on resurrection day to the life everlasting and finding that she had seven husbands! The poor thing. She would die on the spot if that sort of thing could have still happened! Absurd. Resurrection is absurd. It leads to crazy things like that poor woman with all those husbands. […]
CONTEMPT AND MERCY
“God I thank you that I am not like other people….especially that guy over there…” “What was that God? What did you say? Now just hold on for just one second! What’s the point of religion if I can’t look down on someone else? What good is that? Why be virtuous if I can’t […]
RELENTLESS THANKS
So which is it? Is prayer a serene peaceful experience of surrender? Or is prayer a relentless stubborn, belligerent thing ? Importunate, never accepting things as they are, insistent that things change, striving with God? Well obviously it is both. But our scripture lessons today portray prayer as anything but peaceful, in fact they […]
THANKS AND PRAISE
Have you ever been overcome with thankfulness? Keeping a job? Finding work? Surviving an accident or illness? Finding something or someone precious? A particular moment for no reason suddenly overcome with gratitude for simply being? Around the table. A walk down the street. Driving home from work? Even at death and in grief there is […]
MUSTARD AND MULBERRY
The feast day for St. Francis was this past Friday. We’ll be celebrating the witness of this saint with the blessing of the animals at the 11:00 liturgy, out in the front yard, always a lively and festive event. The Gospel lesson today is especially appropriate for a saint like Francis. It’s about something very […]
TRADING PLACES
When I was in middle school I read this great story called The Dog Days of Arthur Cane. Arthur was a teenager who treated everyone poorly, like the proverbial dog, until someone cast a spell and turned him into a dog. He had some adventures and when he had learned his lesson he became human […]
SEARCHING
It seems like I am always looking for something that I misplaced, the matching sock, that book, my keys, my manners, my mind. Sometimes I’m looking for something and then I forget what I was looking for. The Gospel today shows us two images of searching, one for a lost sheep and the other for […]
COSTLY GRACE
I once tried to build a chicken coop. I studied up on it, drew up some plans and made a list of building supplies. Finally I started building. I never did figure out what went wrong. Ultimately I think I just really had no idea what I was doing, and I didn’t even know […]
HUMILITY AND HOSPITALITY
I am so humble. Let me tell you how humble I am. I am so humble that I am going to stand up here and tell you just how humble I am. It would be more honest to say that I am humility challenged. Humility is a hard thing to talk or preach about, or […]