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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
https://bookstore.upperroom.org/Products/1921/a-family-like-mine.aspxWhom Shall I Fear: Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence
https://www.amazon.com/Whom-Shall-Fear-Questions-Christians/dp/0835819671-
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Category Archives: sermon
A sustaining hope
The interventions of God, strength for the journey, can come from humans sweating over laboratory test tubes as easily and as often as angels baking on hot stones. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged 1 Kings 19, Bread of Life, COVID-19, Elijah, gun violence, Jesus, John 6:35
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Some people are never satisfied
I wonder how many evictions one trip into the atmosphere could offset. Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon
Tagged Bread of Life, envy, hunger, Jesus, Moses, Olympics, space race, Zora Neale Hurston
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The faithful shepherd
The Incarnation of Christ is the certainty that God has experienced and undergone all that drags us down into that valley. God is with us in its depths, with rod and staff, the faithful shepherd. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged consolation, depression, Good Shepherd, grief, Psalm 23
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A red, white, and blue sermon
Might we be just a little afraid of what might happen if we allow ourselves truly to be changed, converted, transformed by the grace of our Saviour, Jesus Christ? Are we just a little concerned about going against the flow of popular culture, painting with a different brush, suggesting that mercy is greater than might and love more lasting than power; that even the great and the wise need repentance? Are we afraid to trade in our red, and blue, and whiteness for something in a soft velour? Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged discipleship, Ezekiel 2:5, Independence Day, interdependence, July 4, Mark 6:1-13, Matthew 18:1-4
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Do not invite death
We are not made in anyone’s image but God’s. We are not made for the corruption of death but for the covenant of life. Jesus does not love death or bloodshed – but Jesus loves us. Knowing this, how can we not consider turning from death to life; to pour out healing without counting the cost; to withhold death and restore relationship wherever it is possible; to deny the devil’s envy and replace it with love? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged death, death penalty, gun violence, Jesus, life, Mark 5:21-43, Wisdom of Solomon
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Stormy weather
This is our faith: that Jesus Christ is the very Word and Wisdom and embodiment of God; that he is known to us still, in the breaking of the Bread and in the prayers; that he cares for us still, through the storms and their aftermath; that he is our safe harbour, and our home. Continue reading
Gardening with God
It is only by God’s gracious provision that creation produces within itself shelter for the birds, food for the hungry, growth for the seed, awakening for the earth; and yet God graciously partners with us to nurture the soil, to spread the germ, to discover, to harvest, to share the gifts of the Creator. Continue reading
We are family
Whatever we do to change our landscape of guns and gun violence – whatever policies we support or initiatives are inspired – it begins with our conversion, our repentance, our turning from the tempter’s whispers to the Word of God. Continue reading
Posted in sermon, Whom Shall I Fear?
Tagged #WearOrange, Children Under Fire, John Woodrow Cox, Mark 3:20-35
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Trinity Sunday: we who are many are one
It is the mutuality of the Trinity that we seek. We hear its echoes in our prayers: “though we are many, we are one body” (Romans 12:5). We come closest to it when we experience compassion. Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, sermon
Tagged Amos 5:8, COVID, crossroads, gun violence, John 12:32, John 3:17, John Donne, racism, Romans 12:5, Trinity Sunday
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Prophesy!
The intentions of God, that these dry bones might live, are not beyond our vision. We can see how the world might be, flesh and sinew knit together, if we lived on the breath of God, seeing God’s Spirit in the inhalation, the exhalation of every human being made in God’s image. Continue reading
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