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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
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Category Archives: sermon
Fire
Storm that breaks the sealon the dome that holds the watersof the heavens apart from watersthat brooded life into creation Storm that breaks the heateven as fire is splitting the sky,falling to the ground wrappedin quenching rain Mirrored against the … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, preparing for Sunday with poetry
Tagged Jesus, lightning, Luke 12:49-56, rainbow, Year C Proper 15
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Teach us to pray
The story that Jesus tells suggests that we are in this together; that while one person is begging for bread, the one who is secure, safe and comfortable and tucked up in bed with their well-fed children, is the one who is called upon to answer, “and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged beloved community, Gaza, God, Hosea 1:2-10, Jesus, kingdom of God, Lord's Prayer, Luke 11:1-13, prayer, Year C Proper 12
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Bread
Bread
Who, in the night,
would give their neighbour stones
and say, “Here, make bread.” Continue reading
Who is my neighbour?
Unseen in the shadow of the story, a young cub of the mountain watching the value of love lavished like oil, profligate pity; following at a distance to see if kindness was really worth the weight of stolen gold
Not as the world
When he says, “My peace I give to you,” Jesus is not describing a passive peace. It is the peace not of the grave, where Jesus himself was restless, but of living waters, rolling down like justice, roaring like a vision, aflame with mercy. It is the profound and urgent love that fanned the waters of creation and produced life. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
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Love one another?
A sermon for the fifth Sunday of Easter in 2025. Love is not a light undertaking. Love will break your heart. Love will ask you to move mountains. Love will require that you sacrifice your most closely held prejudices, melt … Continue reading
Posted in homily, sermon
Tagged Acts 11, Easter 5 Year C, Jesus, love, love one another, new commandment, Peter, Revelation
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Unbegrudging Jesus
Then Jesus showed up. Just as the light was dawning, just as the sun was rising behind them, the shore becoming shadowy and obscured by the smoke of his charcoal fire, so that they could barely make him out, but there he was. … still providing for them, still tending to them and feeding them, his lambs. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Ananias, conversion, Easter 3, Jesus, Paul, reconciliation, repentance, Saul, Simon Peter
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Forgiving and retaining
Forgiveness tells the truth; Jesus still carries the marks of the nails in his hands and his feet, and the soldiers and the scoffers cannot enter the space of peace while they are still carrying their hammers. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged doubt, Easter 2, forgiveness, Jesus, John 20:19-31, reconciliation, Thomas
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Easter (without a happy ending)
Easter is not a happy ending. It is hopeful, it is healing, it is a powerful rebuke of death and a defiant proclamation of the life, the mercy, and the love of God that persists throughout human history, throughout human … Continue reading
The prodigal
It would be such a simple tale of family forgiveness, were it not for that wrinkle at the end, but that’s what makes it real. If there were no sin, there would be no need of salvation. If there were no rift, there would be no need for reconciliation. That’s why this story calls us to remember our charge as ambassadors for Christ, ministers and messengers of reconciliation, members of the beloved community of Christ that somehow brings together the sinner and the sinned against. Continue reading
Posted in homily, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged forgiveness, parable, prodigal son, reconciliation, repentance, Year C Lent 4
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over the water 