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Category Archives: homily
For the love of God
You have to wonder how the Song of Songs ever made it into the Bible. … The poem never explicitly mentions God, but if we read it as sacred story, then we affirm and proclaim that this is God’s love for us; this is God’s love song.
That’s what I wanted to preach about this morning. Then, the night before last, there was a mass shooting outside the high school down the street. Five teenagers were hospitalized. One of them has since died.
God loves these children too much for us to continue to let this happen. Continue reading
Posted in gun violence, homily, sermon
Tagged gun violence, James 1:17-27, Jesus, Mark 7, nonviolence, Song of Solomon, Song of Songs
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Body parts
Don’t give up, Paul might say, despite the worn and broken nature of the world, despite our own limitations, whether every part works or not. For we are each formed by God and called together in the love of Christ, and when we work together, to support and to encourage and grow one another’s faith, we will discover and do more than we can ask or imagine, by the love of God. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Body of Christ, Ephesians 4:1-16, Year B Proper 13
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Abundance
We live in a world, in a country and a community, hungry for love, starving for mercy, thirsty for good news. We have all that is needed to provide those essential nutrients to the people before us, around us, among us. And that is exactly where Jesus asks us to begin. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged abundance, Ephesians 3:20-21, feeding, feeding five thousand, Jesus, John 6:1-21, politics, prayer, providence
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The compassion of Christ
The compassionate life is tricky enough in the everyday, and my guess is that even the least political among us will find our last nerve twanged by the rhetoric and anxiety and all that will pile onto the social psyche in the coming months. We may be tempted to try to love our enemies into submission. We may be tempted to try to grind out compassion through our clenched teeth. We will not succeed unless we are grounded in the love of Christ … Continue reading
Let Jesus be Jesus
For us, and for the sake of our country, this is not a choice between the bullet and the ballot box. This is a choice between the bullet and our souls. Jesus had a choice: call down legions of angels or go to the cross, subvert the power of political violence by defeating death itself. Defeat hatred with the overpowering love of God. Overwhelm vengeance with the suffocating aroma of mercy. Break open the patterns of this world, and let in the kingdom of heaven. Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Herod, Jesus, John the Baptist, mass shooting, political violence, Trump
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Expectations
“He could do no deed of power there,” they say, “ – oh, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”
It makes you wonder what their expectations were. Laying hands on the sick and healing them sounds pretty powerful to me. No doubt, for the people healed, for their friends and families, it was life-changing. But to the gospel writer, apparently, no big deal. … Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged hometown prophet, Mark 6:1-13, Year B Proper 9
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Healing miracles
Let’s look for the good news, though. Jesus supports our efforts toward healing, whether they be grand gestures or creeping, shuffling steps through the crowd. Jesus affirms our faith that things can be better, and that he will help make it so. For the sake of Jesus, we are gathered not as individuals wounded by violence, but as a community pulling together to heal one another’s hurts, to pray and to salve with balm the troubled spirit. Continue reading
Posted in gun violence, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged community healing, gun violence, Mark 5:21-43, Psalm 130, Year B Proper 8
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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
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Good Shepherd Sunday: no other Name
Let us not pretend that there is any name – Smith, Wesson, Glock, Remington – by which we may be saved, but only the name of Jesus. Let us not pretend that there is any power in us to save ourselves, except the power of love that Jesus has demonstrated for us, to lay down our lives, little by little, piece by piece, for our neighbours, for love, for the love of God. Continue reading
Posted in gun violence, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged 1John 3:16-24, Acts 3-4, Good Shepherd, gun violence, Jesus, John 10:11-18, Lectionary Lab, Name of Jesus, Psalm 23, sheep, Year B Easter 4
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For fear
In fact, Jesus himself may be our best guide and interpreter of the language of John’s Gospel that we find hard to hear and understand. Jesus, who taught his followers from the scriptures that he knew the best that the way of God is love; that the promises of God are faithful; that the mercy of God endures; that the justice of God does not set a sword between peoples but sacrifices itself for their reconciliation. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged anti-Semitism, Easter 2, Gaza, Israel, Jesus, John 20:19-31, John the Evangelist, the Jews, war
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