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
Category Archives: holy days
A departing
The legends and myths of the kings and the Magi, drawn from faithful, imaginative engagement with the biblical text, resonate with us as a church as we draw together to seek the same saving grace: God with us, Emmanuel; a holy Communion in Christ. The legends reflect our life together as a church, as people, whose paths converge and cross and diverge on the journey toward Christ. We will mark one such departure this morning. After twelve years together, we will remain always united in our experience of God in Christ and in this gathering at the manger and the table and the cross; and yet we will leave by different roads. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Communion, Epiphany, grief, Jesus, leaving, light, love, magi, Matthew 2:1-12, parish, Revelation of the Magi
Leave a comment
New Year’s resolutions
More Jesus, less judgement More Magnificat, less might makes right More mercy, less Schadenfreude More love, less envy More transformation, less conformation More inspiration, less trepidation More Jesus, less me More Jesus
A Christmas Message
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was the cry of a newborn infant, swaddled in cloth and laid in a feeding trough. … Christmas. It’s a … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily, sermon
Tagged Christmas, Incarnation, Jesus, John 1:1-14
Leave a comment
Christ the King (or, the king is not the thing)
One of my favourite biblical reflections on kingship and humanity is Jotham’s parable from the book of Judges:
The trees decided to anoint themselves a king. First, they asked the olive tree: Come be our king! But the olive tree did not want to give up its vocation to produce oil for anointing, to honour and to heal, in order to govern other trees. So they asked the fig tree. But it would not give up its vocation to feed people and animals, birds, and all with its sweet goodness, so it declined. So, too, the vine, when asked, said why would I give up wine-making in order to govern other trees? Finally, they asked the bramble. The bramble, said, if you can find shelter under me, fine, go ahead; but if you are pricked by my thorns and shut out or caught up in my briars, it will be the worse for you. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Christ the King, Jesus, John 18:33-37, Judges 9:7-15, neo-nazis, parable of the trees, Pilate
Leave a comment
Witness
A sermon for All Saints Sunday We all know about Lazarus, don’t we? Lazarus has become a byword for those who return from the dead. In paleontology, Lazarus names those species that disappear from the fossil record as though extinct, … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily, sermon
Tagged All Saints, grief, Isaiah 25:6-9, Jesus, John 11:32-44, Lazarus, love, Year B All Saints
Leave a comment
Jesus wept
To suffer the indignity of grief, that utter exhaustion of the spirit that has sucked hope from the air too long after the dew has dried; the kind of defeat that drives you to your knees and elbows, heaving with the ground, troubling the very earth upon … Continue reading
The Nativity of John the Baptist
How terrifying to give birth through these bones that ache with age, flesh that bears the scars of the hungry years; and nearby, Zechariah wrings out words with his eyes: Breathe. Just breathe. Pleasedo not cease to breathe. The birth waters reach their flood; over them the … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, poetry
Tagged birth, Eizabeth, John the Baptist, nativity, Zechariah
Leave a comment
Trinity Sunday: I and we
Have you ever been in a floatation tank? You know, one of those sensory deprivation set-ups filled with salt water that makes you float as though you were in the Dead Sea; or as though you were back in the … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged birth, Body of Christ, born again, community, Jesus, Nicodemus, rebirth, Trinity
Leave a comment
Pentecost – Prophesy!
It is not naïve to preach peace in the midst of war, nor disarmament in a country that has turned homes into arsenals and loaded them with danger. It is not naïve to advocate instead for mercy, for grace; it is the will of God that these dry bones should live, and be filled with the Spirit of God, the dream of the kingdom of God, the vision of resurrection. Continue reading
This world
When Jesus prays for his disciples, when Jesus prays for us, who will become his disciples generations later, when Jesus prays he casts the world as a dangerous place, even an ugly place in its tendency toward hate; and yet still, he sends his disciples into the world, just as Jesus himself was sent into the world, that all who know him and see God’s love in him might know the life that is eternal. That they may know the joy that God takes in the world, the joy that Jesus knew in this world, despite everything. Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, holy days, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Ascension, discipleship, gun violence, Jesus, ordination, prayer
Leave a comment
over the water 