Category Archives: lectionary reflection

Pentecost 2019: Come, Holy Spirit

Posted on June 9, 2019 by

The Spirit has been present since before the birth of creation, brooding over the waters of the uncreated deep. She breathed life into the nostrils of the first human animals, according to the old stories. She has never been far from us. The trick is to catch sight of the movement of her wings, to hear the vibrations that she creates, the rush of air, the breath of heaven. Continue reading →

Posted in Holy Days, lectionary reflection, prayer, sermon | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Take up your mat

Posted on May 26, 2019 by

Jesus does not help the man to get to the water. Jesus does not need to buy into the system that has kept this man down for thirty-eight years. Jesus is the living water, and he has power to heal the man, and he does that; but he does more. He tells the man to take up his mat, and walk home. Continue reading →

Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Love one another

Posted on May 19, 2019 by

“Love one another,” Jesus said; but talk is cheap. “Love is active rebellion against anything that is not love,” Bishop Wright advised. It is defiant solidarity with the outcast and the oppressed, the immigrant and the orphaned, especially those orphaned by our own cruel and violent actions of family separation. Continue reading →

Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The lamb, the sheep, and the good shepherd

Posted on May 12, 2019 by

Let me be uncomfortably clear: in the months and weeks following the deadly attacks on synagogues from Pittsburgh to Poway, California, reading John, putting into Jesus’ mouth the words, “you do not belong to my sheep,” cannot go unexamined or unchallenged. It is not enough to say, we don’t read much into that, nor mean anything by it; because if we do not, then others will make meaning of it, and we have seen where that can and does continue to lead; and it has not been to the vision of reconciliation and worship that John of Patmos proposed. Continue reading →

Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Easter 2019: no idle tale

Posted on April 21, 2019 by

When the women returned from the empty tomb, they told the men all of this, and they thought that it was just another idle tale like so many others. How could they, even after all they had seen, fail to recognize that Jesus is like no other? But, to be fair, perhaps we too often treat the resurrection like a pretty myth that changes nothing much. Continue reading →

Posted in Holy Days, lectionary reflection, sermon | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Maundy Thursday: the end of love

Posted on April 18, 2019 by

Love is a decision. It is our choice to make, and we cannot make the excuse that someone else destroyed it, if Jesus washed Judas’ feet, and healed the ear of the servant sent to arrest him, and restrained the angels from coming down from heaven to frighten the hell out of Herod and that weasel, Pontius Pilate, letting love be his gospel, and his end. Continue reading →

Posted in Holy Days, homily, lectionary reflection, sermon | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The stones would shout

Posted on April 10, 2019 by

If these walls could speak, they would sing of the sun’s light seeping into sandstone, warming the night when Love comes calling … Continue reading →

Posted in Holy Days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation | Tagged | Leave a comment