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Category Archives: sermon
Release to the captives
Do not listen to me. The leader of the synagogue had the pulpit and he talked right past Jesus, and he was wrong. The people – the people had more sense – they saw what Jesus was doing, bringing release to the captive and rest to the weary, spreading the grace of God thick on the Sabbath bread, and they rejoiced at his incendiary kindness, his audacious mercy, his lawless love.
They heard Jesus say, “You are set free,” and they were jubilant. Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon
Tagged Declaration of Independence, freedom, Luke 12:49-56, promise, sabbath, slavery, The 1619 project
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Love will tear us apart
The divisions that Jesus describes are growing pains, signs of the emergence of the kingdom of God. Discipleship stretches our souls to love more deeply, to forgive more recklessly. Discipleship should change us, stretch us, and there will be friction as we rub up against the tolerance of the structures that have formed us. These are the signs of the kingdom, Jesus tells us, so do not be afraid. God is willing and waiting to restore all things in God’s mercy, risking everything alongside you on the Cross, transforming its hard lines into new life through the Resurrection. Continue reading
By faith
A word of encouragement for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost in Year C. The author of the letter to the Hebrews was not, to our knowledge, a theoretical physicist; although they might have been. To declare that “faith is the … Continue reading
America, it is past time to repent
The deadly combination of targeted hatred coupled with widespread individual armouries – an obscene proliferation of weapons of death tucked into our daily life – continues to wreak havoc among us. This is the product and the consequence of sin. Continue reading
Gilroy, guns, and White anger
Red Letter Christians published a piece I wrote reflecting on the uncivil war simmering in the soul of America, one that breaks out all too often in acts of violence like last weekend’s tragedy in Gilroy, California. Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, lectionary reflection
Tagged #Gilroystrong, gun violence, Herod, Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18, racism, White supremacism
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When you pray
This was the prayer that first made me fall for Jesus, when I was a child. Of course, I learnt the expanded form that we use in worship; the one that we prayed, hands together, eyes closed, every morning at school assembly time (never at home). But even in its stripped down, barest form, as Luke presents Jesus teaching it, the world which this prayer conjures into being is enough to set my spirit on fire. Continue reading
Prophets and privateers: by their fruits shall ye know them
There is a hardness to the grapes, and a waxiness to the skin of the pear. There is sawdust at the bottom of the bowl, instead of the dusting of peach fuzz that we expected to find. We have been fooled. The fruit is a fake. It is plastic and wood, made only to decorate the room. It is not even a still life. There is no nurture or nutrition in it. It is lifeless. It is a scam. Continue reading
Do good. Don’t stop.
The seventy returned to Jesus excited and amped up, saying, “You should see how we owned the forces of evil! How we slayed in the name of the Spirit! We are on fire!” And Jesus said, “Yesss. Awesome. You are amazing. You are undefeatable. I know, I know that the way of love wins (because, ahem, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life). I know that you have it in you to do great things. But, not to rain on your parade or anything, but … Do not become distracted, even by your own indisputable awesomeness, from the way of love.” Continue reading
Trinity Sunday, 2019
Within God’s perfect being is the reconciliation of relationship, the interplay of love, the communication of difference and solidarity. Those aspects of God promise that we are understood, that we are accepted in all of our difference, diversity, struggle, and longing; that within the heart of a God who knows all about it from experience, we are healed. Within the heart of a God who knows even brokenness, betrayal, the shadow sides of love, we are recognized, accepted, restored. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged baptism, connecting communities, hope, Trinity Sunday
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Fridays are for mortality
The choice of incarnation, an island carved out of immortality, implies that God is not immune to hard weeks. Continue reading
Posted in prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged birdsong, death, grief, immortality, Trinity Sunday
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over the water 