Category Archives: homily

Living stones

Posted on May 10, 2020 by

Have you ever wandered through an old graveyard, reading the tombstones, wondering about the stories that they tell? Most give little away. Many speak names, dates, perhaps a close relationship or two. … Stones have little space for ambiguity or nuance. They are hard-nosed, they get straight to the point. They do not give up extra flourishes easily. “Well loved” is the kind of distillation of a life they can support. Names, dates, and one salient detail to sum up the measure of a man, or a mother. Continue reading →

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Friday 2020

Posted on April 10, 2020 by

The loneliness of death frightens us … we are rightly afraid, I am afraid that I will be unequal to my promises, the promise of Peter, though all become deserters, to stay with you, to stay near you, come what may.
I am unequal to my promises, but Jesus is not. If nothing else, he proved that on the Cross. Continue reading →

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Ash Wednesday: grace is not in vain

Posted on February 26, 2020 by

Lent is a good discipline for me. The soul-searching, the self-denial, the study of God’s grace is something that I need constantly if I am to recognize the enormity, the ridiculous span and spread of God’s mercy.

But constantly is hard to do. Continue reading →

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The imagination of eternity

Posted on December 4, 2019 by

There is danger, nonetheless, in rendering Christ in wood and ink, oil and water, his features flattened, pressed under the weight of our expectations and experience, Mary’s milky flesh lightened and whitened, the divine darkness artificially brightened with gilt and gold. There is the danger that instead of conforming our imaginations to Christ’s likeness, we will attempt to fix him in ours. Continue reading →

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Do good. Don’t stop.

Posted on July 7, 2019 by

The seventy returned to Jesus excited and amped up, saying, “You should see how we owned the forces of evil! How we slayed in the name of the Spirit! We are on fire!”
And Jesus said, “Yesss. Awesome. You are amazing. You are undefeatable. I know, I know that the way of love wins (because, ahem, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life). I know that you have it in you to do great things. But, not to rain on your parade or anything, but … Do not become distracted, even by your own indisputable awesomeness, from the way of love.” Continue reading →

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Preach

Posted on May 17, 2019 by

I am at the airport, waiting for my ride home from the Festival of Homiletics, and what shall I say? I have been broken and I have been stitched up. I have been blown away, and I have been blown … Continue reading →

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Reconciling love

Posted on April 28, 2019 by

Into this covenant Ann and Ben now come to be married. May their witness to the love and faithfulness of Christ warm our hearts, our may our joy at their union be reckoned to us as a reconciling righteousness. Amen. Continue reading →

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