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Category Archives: holy days
Palm Sunday 2024
If we are still looking for a military ruler, or a magician, or a mighty Messiah, we had better look elsewhere. What Jesus offers us is merely the humility, servitude, self-sacrifice, self-abandonment of an all-encompassing, death-defeating love: the creative, life-giving, all-absorbing love of God that will not let us go, nor let us down, nor leave us alone. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged Alan E. Lewis, Incarnation, Jesus, Lazarus, Palm Sunday, passion, theology
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And what of the colt?
It knew, as animals do, more than the crowd, felt beneath its hooves the blood of the branches, stones slickened with sap, the vibrations of voices hungry for release; heard the heartbeat of the man astride its back, how it … Continue reading
Lazarus campaigns against the death penalty
This is a #preparingforSundaywithpoetry prologue post. At last evening’s Bible study, we noticed the “Lazarus framework“ to John’s Palm Sunday story (if you’re using Mark, another poem from the pov of the colt is coming). No wonder, we said, authorities … Continue reading
Epiphany 2024
I have probably said this before, but the Gospel story of the visitation of the Magi to the manger of the Christ never mentions three kings, nor their names, nor their camels. It does not specify their country or countries … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged community, Epiphany, Galileo, Matthew 2:1-12, Revelation, three kings
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Forewarned
They left by another way to avoid the falling stars bombarding the night sky, minor apocalypses scoring their trails across the Red Sea. They dreamed of corridors between the waters knowing that God created dry land once. Cradled by sand dunes haunted by Herod’s gaudy and the Child’s humble glory they … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, preparing for Sunday with poetry, sermon preparation
Tagged Epiphany, Gaza, genocide, Herod, magi, red sea, Suez, war
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Christmas Day 2023
The solidity of a sculpture, the fragility of glass, the intricacy of brushwork, the multivalency of language, the mystery of music, the bodies of dance, art become flesh: all of these are ways that we communicate with one another and seek to understand the human condition, even the divine. And God, who danced across the waters of creation and descended like a dove and painted the sky with stars and whispered loud words into the brains of prophets: this God who would stop at nothing to let us know that God is with us, became flesh, took on the language of love, of touch, of breath, of death, of life. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, homily
Tagged art, Christmas Day, creation, Incarnation, John 1:1-14
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Christmas Eve 2023
It is a sign of God’s love for us that in tenderness and innocence, in vulnerability and humility, God became not the heir to a kingly throne but the passing tenant of a stableful of animals. It matters that God chose to come among us not at the head of a battalion of angels come to join in our warring ways, but to be born from within us, to convert us from the inside out into people charged with carrying and feeding and tending to and growing the love of God among us. For with God, nothing will be impossible. Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, homily, sermon
Tagged Christmas Eve, Christmas story, Incarnation
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Lucy and the Light of the World
I think of the long aperture of a camera taking pictures of the night; instant to instant, our eyes see only the tiniest pinpricks in the darkness, but left open to the sky, the camera is able to absorb and interpret those tiny messages into images of great light and beauty; images of hope. Continue reading
Posted in advent meditations, holy days, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Bethlehem, Desmond Tutu, Holy Land, John 1:9-14, John Donne, light, light of the world, manger, Saint Lucy, war
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Not in glory
Not in glory but in the gloom of winter glimmers a light born of love, warmed by love, worshipped by angels; humble beginnings swaddled and held close promise the earth and deliver the heavens.
Posted in advent meditations, holy days, poetry, prayer
Tagged Advent, Christmas, Incarnation, longest night
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Blessed are those who mourn …
Blessedness is not about material success nor even the absence of suffering in this life: it is about walking ever more closely with God. The closer we come, the greater our understanding of the rewards of mercy, the heights of humility, the purity of love, the power of peace. So yes, blessed are those who mourn when God Themself is weeping. Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, sermon
Tagged All Saints, All Souls, beatitudes, grief, Matthew 5:1-12, war in the Holy Land
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over the water 