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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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Category Archives: current events
Vaccines, masks, love, and religion
For the love of Christ, let’s take care of this body, with tenderness, respect, selflessness, wisdom, and love, so that in good time and good health, we may rejoice together. Continue reading
Some people are never satisfied
I wonder how many evictions one trip into the atmosphere could offset. Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon
Tagged Bread of Life, envy, hunger, Jesus, Moses, Olympics, space race, Zora Neale Hurston
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A red, white, and blue sermon
Might we be just a little afraid of what might happen if we allow ourselves truly to be changed, converted, transformed by the grace of our Saviour, Jesus Christ? Are we just a little concerned about going against the flow of popular culture, painting with a different brush, suggesting that mercy is greater than might and love more lasting than power; that even the great and the wise need repentance? Are we afraid to trade in our red, and blue, and whiteness for something in a soft velour? Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged discipleship, Ezekiel 2:5, Independence Day, interdependence, July 4, Mark 6:1-13, Matthew 18:1-4
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Trinity Sunday: we who are many are one
It is the mutuality of the Trinity that we seek. We hear its echoes in our prayers: “though we are many, we are one body” (Romans 12:5). We come closest to it when we experience compassion. Continue reading
Posted in current events, Holy Days, sermon
Tagged Amos 5:8, COVID, crossroads, gun violence, John 12:32, John 3:17, John Donne, racism, Romans 12:5, Trinity Sunday
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Prayer for an end to mass shootings
My God,can we not go one week,sabbath to sabbath,without a mass shooting? Will you not beatour pistols into ploughshares,our shotguns into shovels,our rifles into rakes,massage some feeling intoour hearts of stone? I sigh, open my eyes;the mirror stares back in … Continue reading
Let justice roll like a river; still waters can wait
There is no way of praying Psalm 23 truthfully, honestly, lovingly, in this time and place that does not acknowledge that there are no still waters, there can be no resting in meadows, when violence threatens to break in at any moment. There is no peace while injustice holds sway anywhere among us. Continue reading
Good Friday: a pieta
He died with the cry crushed from his chest,calling out from the cross to his mother.They crucified him on a stolen hill.They gambled away his clothes.He called out to his mother, shecould not swaddle his naked pain. When he was … Continue reading
Are we there yet?
There is nothing in Christ’s story that would justify our sacrifice of children, women, grocery shoppers, police officers, and passers by to defend our right to reserve weapons of violence to ourselves. On the contrary, the resurrection is God’s ultimate judgement on the violence that nailed Jesus to the cross. The resurrection is God’s utter negation and reversal of all that would kill the beloved. Continue reading
Bronze serpents and steel needles
The people found their way into the snake-infested territory through impatience, selfish grumbling, ingratitude against God, and concern each for their own comfort over the salvation of the whole people from slavery. As long as each person sat in their own poison, death pursued them. But when they looked to the sign that God had given them of hope and of mercy, they were made better, and not only as individuals, but the community recovered, and they were able to move on from that place. Continue reading
Posted in current events, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged COVID-19, foetal stem cells, John 3:14-17, Moses, Numbers 21:4-9, vaccinations
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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
