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Category Archives: current events
Citizens of heaven
Our citizenship is in heaven, declare the confident and the confused, the helpless and the hopeful, in every language invented under the Word of God; and the kingdom of heaven is at hand, says Jesus, where love is unwavering and indiscriminate; where death is defeated by the stubborn and resilient love of God, and the hope of heaven. Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon, story
Tagged #christchurchmosqueshooting, Luke 13:34, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Year C Lent 2
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Bright cloud
There are those bright clouds in which we recognize God’s presence already among us, working in us and through us as we struggle to do the right thing, even when the way is obscure and foggy, even when we are terrified, even when we confronted with anger, grief, failure. The way of the cross is not an easy road, but it does lead to deliverance, to freedom from unclean spirits, eventually to resurrection. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged grief, Jesus, justice, LGBTQ, Transfiguration, UMC
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What the world needs now
“Don’t be afraid,” says Jesus, “From now on you will be catching people.” Simon, James, and John looked at the great crowd gathered on the sea shore to hear Jesus, to see Jesus, to find Jesus. And they put down their nets, and followed Jesus into the country, into the crowd, who needed more than anything to know the presence of the living God among them. Continue reading
Love all the way down
A sermon for the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany in Year C, the annual meeting of Epiphany parish, Euclid, and the Solemn Sung Eucharist at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland. The main text for this sermon is Paul’s ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged 1 Corinthians 1:3, Jeremiah 1:4-10, love, Luke 4, Year C Epiphany 4
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Water, wine, and justice like an ever-flowing stream
On sabbatical, I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I can’t begin to describe briefly the impact of walking that history of inhumanity and human dignity set up in opposition to one another, the weight of those ceilings, each one a century, and the heaviness of your footsteps as you climb closer to our own day of reckoning. Continue reading
Olive branches over ordnance
The olive trees, ancient and observant, hearing the blood that cries out from the land, whisper that the answer to Cain’s crime cannot be to take the hoe from his hand and hand him an AR-15. Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, story
Tagged Cain and Abel, Holy Land, mass shooting, olive branch, orange stole
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What will we do?
We participate in one another’s futures. So we will offer our presence, our presence of mind, our best efforts to love one another in word, in deed, by statute. Continue reading
Posted in current events
Tagged anti-Semitism, election, gun violence, love of God, love your neighbour, politics, racism
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We talked about this
Shackled to the shadows of a brutalist building, words barely grazing our lips, we talked about this. Our breath stirred the air, that sabbath exhalation at the end of creation; the wordless sigh of God.
Posted in current events, poetry, prayer
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Salt and sabbatical
But that is the theology of Thomas the Tank Engine, who longs only to hear the Fat Controller call him “a useful little engine.” It is not the theology found in the Bible nor in the Word of God, Jesus the Christ, who celebrates the meek and the helpless, the poor in spirit and the hopeless, the errant and the outcast, the ungodlike. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, prayer, sermon
Tagged James 5:13-20, Jesus, Mark 9:38-50, theology, Thomas the Tank Engine, Year B Proper 21
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Conjuring Esther
Esther has become difficult to read. Her story makes me angry and afraid. We read it like a fairytale. But like so many fairytales, it teems with themes of horror dressed up in satin and silk. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon preparation, story
Tagged #ChurchToo, #metoo, Esther, sex trafficking
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