All rights reserved
© Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, 2011-2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
RevGalBlogPals
Meta
Author Archives: Rosalind C Hughes
How to command love
Can love be commanded?Does the demanding not crucify love?Gentleness can be commanded, surely – the salve, the oil – resistance, too, the other cheek slowly turned to point away from violence. Feed my sheep can be commanded, break the bread, … Continue reading
God is love
The call to love is the call of the cross; the call to be true to God’s mission of redeeming love for the world in the face of all that is against it. It is the memory of Jesus in the Garden, resisting evil not with violence but with a healing touch; submitting his own human will for control to the knowledge of God’s power to create new life even out of the compost of this world’s decay. Rooted and grounded in him, what could we become? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Leave a comment
Good Shepherd Sunday: no other Name
Let us not pretend that there is any name – Smith, Wesson, Glock, Remington – by which we may be saved, but only the name of Jesus. Let us not pretend that there is any power in us to save ourselves, except the power of love that Jesus has demonstrated for us, to lay down our lives, little by little, piece by piece, for our neighbours, for love, for the love of God. Continue reading
Posted in gun violence, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged 1John 3:16-24, Acts 3-4, Good Shepherd, gun violence, Jesus, John 10:11-18, Lectionary Lab, Name of Jesus, Psalm 23, sheep, Year B Easter 4
Leave a comment
Give me something to eat
Of course they had fish – remember who they were. Like little boys with their little loaves and a few small fish, watching his hands as they broke the flesh pierced by their hooks into pieces; they fed him as … Continue reading
For fear
In fact, Jesus himself may be our best guide and interpreter of the language of John’s Gospel that we find hard to hear and understand. Jesus, who taught his followers from the scriptures that he knew the best that the way of God is love; that the promises of God are faithful; that the mercy of God endures; that the justice of God does not set a sword between peoples but sacrifices itself for their reconciliation. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged anti-Semitism, Easter 2, Gaza, Israel, Jesus, John 20:19-31, John the Evangelist, the Jews, war
Leave a comment
Easter 2024
We believe, without the benefit of angels or appearances, that he rose from the dead, that the Roman Empire, greatest superpower in history, could do their worst to kill him, but that they could not destroy him.
We believe that in the midst of trouble, in the midst of unrest and unease, in the midst of our lives, there is no grave that can hold God hostage. We believe that Jesus is risen, and hope has been unleashed. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Easter, hope, Jesus, Mark 16:1-8, Resurrection
Leave a comment
Good Friday: the rock
These were his disciples, his followers, his confidantes; he had told them that this would happen, and that it wouldn’t be the end. But they had seen him helpless on the wooden gibbet; they had seen him mocked and pierced; they could not leave him defenseless against the elements or the wild beasts, be they animal or human. They rolled a stone across the entrance to the tomb. Continue reading
Maundy Thursday: love
And in the next heartbeat he was on his feet, filling the bowl with water, stripping off his robe and rolling up his sleeves, because he knew that if he was to leave them knowing how to love, he needed to show them the depth, the humility, the profundity of his love for them. Continue reading
What we learn from one another
A poem towards Maundy Thursday Some days later, stretching out his hand to pluck an olive to his puckered mouth he remembered her hands and her hair, how the scent of nard filled his mind, overwhelming the taste of the food with the sweet and … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry
Tagged anointing, footwashing, Holy Week, Jesus, John 12, John 13, Mary of Bethany, Maundy Thursday
Leave a comment
Palm Sunday 2024
If we are still looking for a military ruler, or a magician, or a mighty Messiah, we had better look elsewhere. What Jesus offers us is merely the humility, servitude, self-sacrifice, self-abandonment of an all-encompassing, death-defeating love: the creative, life-giving, all-absorbing love of God that will not let us go, nor let us down, nor leave us alone. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged Alan E. Lewis, Incarnation, Jesus, Lazarus, Palm Sunday, passion, theology
Leave a comment
