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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
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Category Archives: sermon
Anything good
Anything good this way comes, fragrant from the desert, fat from fasting, presumptuous in his humility,faint traces of aloe following him like a draft, children hanging from his heels like lambs trying to suckle from the hem of his garment. … 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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Word, words, wordless
In the beginning, says John, and you can tell that he is thinking back to that old story of beginnings, the one in Genesis that begins, In the beginning… And so as God spoke light into creation, and life, so … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Christmas, Incarnation, John 1:1-18, John's Prologue, ministry of presence
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The Word
In the beginning, the Word breathed light. In the beginning, the Word formed the vowels of the ocean, hard consonants of land. In the beginning, Word crawled, swam, flew, blossomed. Before flesh, there was the Word; utter God, utter Being, utter Love. John 1:1-18
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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Advent IV: Impossible love
The angel didn’t need to oversell the child, the mundanity of human love, which is become the love of God made manifest, evidence that God loves us despite the risk, despite our sin, despite our pain, because God delights in us, because God is love. Continue reading
Posted in advent meditations, homily, sermon
Tagged family, grief, Incarnation, love of God, Luke 1:26-38, year b advent 4
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Nothing is impossible
If nothing is impossible with God, what can be trusted? The sun may lose its grip on heaven, fall helpless to the ocean, sink or set the world aflame, melting its willing, molten heart. Birds of prey may sing lullabies … Continue reading
Rejoice, repent, renew
I had a realization on Tuesday evening that our Bible Study group witnessed me coming to in real time: that John the Baptist was an Episcopalian. In our daily office prayers, and even in our Sunday Eucharist, if we turn … Continue reading
Posted in advent meditations, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Advent 3 Year B, John the Baptist
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