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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
red white and blue
Content warning for fear of gun violence at a school sirens stretch the air like an old jazz horn lights the color of a fresh wound pause snow around the school drive pounded into ice by parents pacing out their … Continue reading
Love, knowledge, authority, and unclean spirits
The unclean spirits knew Jesus, and they named him. Jesus knew the man, and he loved him. Continue reading
Being human in Nineveh
This byword for sin and evil changed its ways, and its fine robes for sackcloth and ashes, because a prophet, reluctant, inadequate, and very fishy, walked among them. Because he came to see them not as political cartoons, memes, or caricatures, he found himself acting as a human toward them. Continue reading
Prostitutes and Pharisees: enough of contempt
Any time that we use another human being for our own gratification, without due respect to the full image of God, the full image of Christ within them, we commit the kind of blasphemy to which Paul refers. When we exploit one another for economic gain, or put someone down to bolster our own ego; when we use another to vent our frustration, of any kind, to vent our anger, to be our scapegoat or our escape; when we label the other with our own sin and blame; when we treat any other person as less than as gloriously full of the image of the divine as we are, then we are subject to the kind of judgement we normally reserve for those we consider sinners. Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Genesis 38, John 1:43-51, John 8:1-11, Joshua 2, Martin Luther King, Matthew 1:1-17, Rahab, Ruth, Tamar
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Resisting evil
On the Feast of the Epiphany, the day on which we celebrate God’s revelation of the Incarnation of Christ to the nations of the world, images from our nation’s capital were cast about the globe of insurrectionists wrapped in flags, some with the name of the president and symbols of civil war, and some which bore with them the holy name of Jesus. Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, sermon
Tagged Acts 19:1-7, Baptism of Our Lord, Epiphany, Trump insurrection
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A prayer for the preacher when words fail
January 9, 2021 Beyond Jordan, the baptizer cried repentance, preaching to snakes, devouring locusts, razing the wilderness with his words, confronting kings and drowning sins. At his neck, the knowledge of his own humility, the prickling of glory about to … Continue reading
Posted in current events, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged John the Baptist, preaching, the baptism of Jesus, Word of God
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The Cross
The Cross January 6, 2021 Empty his cross took on a life fame and infamy of its own Withered by sun and swollen the wood rotted down Romans rotating home took mementos of their tour symbols of conquest caked with … Continue reading
Epiphany: the Lord shall arise upon you
If we find ourselves in darkness for a season, we have no need to be afraid of it, for Christ is with us, for darkness is the womb of God. If we find ourselves uncertain of the way forward, the heavens clouded and the north star shrouded, we have seen a light that is not distant from us, not hidden in the heavens or shrouded by clouds of grief or of glory, but borne among us, wherever the love of God is remembered, and the child of God attended with mercy and justice and humility. Continue reading
The Magi by Night
They travelled by night.
They followed his star, meaning
they had to wait for darkness to fall as a mantle
about their shoulders to know the way; Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer
Tagged Epiphany, holy darkness, magi, Matthew 2:1-15
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Not there yet
In recent months, we turned 2020 into a scapegoat, piled on our woes: a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, health worries, the inability of our election magically to make everyone finally agree; even murder hornets. But the year has turned, and has a new name, and we are still some way from the solid ground of familiarity, of home. … It’s going to take patience to find our new beginnings this year. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Christmas, COVID, Ephesians 1, Epiphany, Jeremiah 31, Matthew 2, patience
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over the water 