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Category Archives: holy days
Why have we come here? Good Friday 2019
We come not to glory in his death, but out of fear of our own; and not only, nor even the death of our bodies, may they never endure such pain as his; but the death of our souls, the diminishing returns of our humanity, the erosion of love and the weary wearing away of compassion. On the cross, we see the destitution of our humanity, what it has come to, that we would sacrifice Christ to keep an unquiet peace, and pile on the death of God to weight the scales of injustice. We see where it could all end up, if we would prefer instruments of death to a way of life that makes us vulnerable to the demands of love and of mercy. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily, sermon, story
Tagged angels, cross, Good Friday, hope, Jesus, reserved sacrament
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Maundy Thursday: the end of love
Love is a decision. It is our choice to make, and we cannot make the excuse that someone else destroyed it, if Jesus washed Judas’ feet, and healed the ear of the servant sent to arrest him, and restrained the angels from coming down from heaven to frighten the hell out of Herod and that weasel, Pontius Pilate, letting love be his gospel, and his end. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Jesus, love, Maundy Thursday
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Tenebrae
Scarlet shadows seeping backward from the cross; cruel fascination draws us to the flame like moths, extinguished one by one; love like an earthquake sends us trembling toward the tomb
The stones would shout
If these walls could speak, they would sing of the sun’s light seeping into sandstone, warming the night when Love comes calling … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged Palm Sunday
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Remembrance, repentance, and reconciliation
In Lent, we bury [the word of ululating praise] beneath our tongues, yet even in dust and ashes it is our song, tuning in to Christ’s love, our hope, the truth of God’s undying mercy. Continue reading
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
Keeping promises
I have no doubt that God was with me in that river, whose banks Jesus knew, whose rapids perhaps he had played in. I have no doubt that God would have stayed with me, whether I lived or died that day. But in order to remain alive, in that moment, I also needed my people, the little community of foreigners with whom I had set out that morning in a black tyre inner tube to float down the river towards the Sea of Galilee. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged baptism, baptismal covenant, community, Isaiah 43:2
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A baptism
In Galilee, a root gripped my foot,
the tree of life inverted, submerged … Continue reading
The people’s epiphany
When the wise men came to Herod with the news of a saviour, the establishment replied, “Yes, but that is not how we do things here. We know that God has promised something new, but we are happy with the old ways.” One doesn’t have to be as mad and as murderous as Herod in order to shoot down initiatives and new ideas that might, in fact, have been inspired by the heavens. Continue reading
over the water 