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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
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Category Archives: sermon
Word and deed
Prophets, true prophets, are truth-tellers. They are not in the prophecy business for popularity. Unlike politicians, their constituency is not power brokers but the poor in spirit, the people of God who seek hope not in empires and armies but in the word of God, God’s promise to their ancestors to walk with them and not to leave them lost and alone. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Body of Christ, Jeremiah 32:1-15, Jesus, power, prophecy, word and deed, Word of God, Year C Proper 21
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How to read the Bible
There is a section in one of my church Bibles called, “How to read the Bible.” My curiosity says I ought to check it out; my concern wonders if it isn’t a bit late for that by this point in … Continue reading
The table
Ironically, while we are deciding where to seat him, Jesus is busy setting the table himself. And his invitation is clear:
Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.
Come to me, you who are thirsty, and I will give you living water to drink.
Come, eat of the bread of life, and I will raise you up. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged discipleship, gun violence, Hebrews 13:1-8&15-16, Jesus, Luke 14:1-4, parable, sabbath
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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
