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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
https://bookstore.upperroom.org/Products/1921/a-family-like-mine.aspxWhom Shall I Fear: Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence
https://www.amazon.com/Whom-Shall-Fear-Questions-Christians/dp/0835819671-
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Author Archives: Rosalind C Hughes
Apostasies
from the bible challenge blog God forgive us our daily apostasies: the taking of your name in vain, faking faith, defrauding love; the times we fail to call on you at all; the many ways in which our worship turns … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
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Lasting
Is this how it was for Adam and Eve: old as time and young as their memories; innocence easily beguiled, carrying still the remnants of chaos, shaken off to water the tree? And see who answers their tapping on the … Continue reading
Parabolic
It is often said, but bears repeating, that we have a tendency to tame Jesus’ parables. Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at least complacency. When we stop hearing them as stories, and instead hear only the interpretation and allegorization and reenactment … Continue reading
Posted in sermon preparation
Tagged absurdity, Jesus, Matthew 25:1-13, parable of the bridesmaids, parables, Year A Proper 27
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All Saints 2014
Jesus clearly didn’t have the best agent. If he had titled his sermon on the mount, “How to live your best blessed life right now,” he could have gathered forty thousand on the hillside instead of four thousand. He could … Continue reading
Year A Proper 24: the stewardship sermon
The question about taxes, and rendering unto Caesar, led into a sermon with time for pew-talk. The outline / framework went something like this: Jesus does a really nice politician’s job of handing the question back to the Pharisees and … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged adoption, Caesar, church finance, Matthew 22:15-22, pledge, stewardship, taxes
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Love you to death
Flashback: That week, everyone spoke in sympathetic soft, tilted voices. In a grim comedy, I parrotted their corporate condolences, squawking them directly into my father’s hearing aid. The funeral director was trying coyly to explain the need for a high-necked … Continue reading
Posted in current events, other words
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Render
A silhouette against my eyelids, black on red; a name beaten out by my heart’s tattoo; the claim that staked me through and through; I render unto, surrender unto – whose image and title is this?
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged Matthew 22:15-22, render unto Caesar, surrender, Year A Proper 24
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Year A Proper 23: come to the feast
There have been two weddings in this church in the past ten days, and three within three months. Each was its own blend of nervousness, family friendship, family friction, love, hope, and joy. Each of them was noticeable, in the … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged Communion, Isaiah 25:1-9, joy, matthew 22:1-14, parable, Philippians 4:1-9, the wedding feast
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over the water 