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Category Archives: lectionary reflection
Tabitha’s companions struggle “to assert her dignity and worth as a human being”
The women had come together to wash Tabitha’s body and commiserate, because there are always those spaces in time and culture where those who bear the title or burdens of womanhood need to come together for mutual support, encouragement, wisdom, laughter, and tears.
This may be one of those spaces in our time and culture. Continue reading
No exceptions
What are we afraid of? Expanding our understanding of what it is to be human? Jesus has already stretched it beyond our imagining, being both human and divine, mortal and resurrected, all at once. Continue reading
Good Friday
The cross does not narrow down God’s love for the world. It raises up God’s love so that all might see the compassion, the deep and abiding compassion, of God for God’s people, that God would even suffer with us in order to redeem us from our suffering and sin. Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Good Friday, Passion Gospel, solemn collects
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Sleep, prayer, grief, and Jesus
Jesus knew that he would conquer death and sin – he had told them over and again that he would rise – but he was grieved and frightened and anguished at the capacity of his human captors for violence. There is no contradiction here: it was from ourselves that he came to save us. That is why he advises his disciples, “Pray that you may not be tested.” Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged gethsemane, Holy Week, Jesus, Palm Sunday, Passion Gospel, prayer, Ukraine
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Here is love
Here is love that doesn’t bury grief, but anoints it, attends to it. Here is love that doesn’t count the cost, but pours itself out so that it is felt, sensed, perceived far beyond the feet that receive it: “the house was filled with the fragrance of it.” Here is love that inspires others to love. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged anointing, Holy Week, John 12:1-8, Judas Iscariot, Lent, love, Mary of Bethany, Year C Lent 5
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Holy ground
God said, “This is holy ground.” In the middle of the wilderness, to the side of the path, from the heart of a desert shrub, God spoke, and God said, “This, too, is holy ground.” Because there is no place on earth that God has abandoned. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Balaam, Exodus 3:1-15, God's mercy, Incarnation, Lent, Moses, Numbers 22, Ukraine, war, year c lent 3
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Love your enemies
The burden of love outweighs all other duties, and not only toward those who love us. Even our secular treaties and rules of engagement declare it to be true. And still, Jesus goes further. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged love your enemies, sermon on the plain
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The level place
We stand on ground that is spinning at astronomical speed, hurtling through the immensity of space, at an enormous distance from the sun. No wonder we feel unstable! But Jesus is our level ground. He is here with us still, in the level place, steady and steadfast in a world full of trouble, rising ab Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Jeremiah 17:5-10, Jesus, level ground, Luke 6:17-26, selfishness, sermon on the plain
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God has warm legs?
Conditions change, the world turns, people grow, some get sick, some get better, some flee to Egypt, some return. We cannot expect, nor should we try, to recreate the past; but there is sunlight in the future, too, and flashes of inspiration. And there is warmth still in the relationships that endure. The cat, when she has given up on the flash of light, curls up in the patient knowledge that sooner or later, someone with warm legs will feed her; that she is beloved. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
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On the sabbath, he went to the synagogue
It was the sabbath, so she went to the synagogue. I wonder how many people’s stories began that way last weekend, before the worship of the Jewish people was interrupted yet again by violence. It should be as safe as we feel coming to church. It should be as easy and as natural as the scripture makes it sound: it was Saturday, so he went to synagogue. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged antisemitism, conspiracy theories, Jesus, Luke 4:14-21, synagogue
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over the water 