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Category Archives: sermon
Remembrance, repentance, and reconciliation
In Lent, we bury [the word of ululating praise] beneath our tongues, yet even in dust and ashes it is our song, tuning in to Christ’s love, our hope, the truth of God’s undying mercy. Continue reading
Bright cloud
There are those bright clouds in which we recognize God’s presence already among us, working in us and through us as we struggle to do the right thing, even when the way is obscure and foggy, even when we are terrified, even when we confronted with anger, grief, failure. The way of the cross is not an easy road, but it does lead to deliverance, to freedom from unclean spirits, eventually to resurrection. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged grief, Jesus, justice, LGBTQ, Transfiguration, UMC
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An ordination sermon: submittere
It is in the most intractable problems of the world and its children that we find ourselves unable to proclaim our own greatness, nor believe in our own glory. It is here, at the end of hope, that we find ourselves gathered once more with Jesus at the table, with the people whom he most loves, the ones who are broken like bread, scattered like crumbs, poured out like spilt wine. Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, deacon, discipleship, Luke 22:24-27, ordination, servant ministry, submittere, William Temple
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How to love your enemies
Love your enemies, says Jesus. Let God take your anger and turn it into something beyond your imagining – just as Jesus turned the horror, the terror, the death of the cross into the astonishment of the Resurrection. Continue reading
The truth will make you free
To preach the commemoration of Frederick Douglass is an exercise in humility for a white woman of considerable privilege. To try to bring his words and example to bear upon the way in which we hear the gospel today, without reduction or exploitation or appropriation, is an exercise in repentance. My repentance will not be perfect, so I ask your forgiveness up front. Continue reading
Posted in homily
Tagged Frederick Douglass, Kelly Brown Douglas, racism, slaveholder Christianity, White supremacy
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The truth will make you free
To preach the commemoration of Frederick Douglass is an exercise in humility for a white woman of considerable privilege. To try to bring his words and example to bear upon the way in which we hear the gospel today, without reduction or exploitation or appropriation, is an exercise in repentance. My repentance will not be perfect, so I ask your forgiveness up front. Continue reading
Posted in homily
Tagged Frederick Douglass, Kelly Brown Douglas, racism, slaveholder Christianity, White supremacy
Leave a comment
Mere mortals
Consider the vision of God’s kingdom that Jesus offers: a world in which the poor have power; where the bereft are comforted. Where profits are harvested as food for the hungry, with ploughshares beaten out of pistols. Where the name Pulse has not been perverted to echo with death and anger, but resumes its resonance of life, and love. Where Aurora means the halo of light around the moon, giving glory to God with all the heavenly bodies, and we no longer ask, do you mean the one in Colorado, or the one in Illinois? Where the south side of Chicago is simply the sunny side of the street. Where the Tree of Life grows green in the Garden of Eden. A kingdom where the name Parkland conjures up, not the valley of the shadow of death, but a quiet place, green pastures beside still waters. Continue reading
Posted in gun violence, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged #Parkland, a year C Epiphany 6, Aurora, gun violence, Jeremiah, Jesus, kingdom of God, Pulse, Tree of Life
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What the world needs now
“Don’t be afraid,” says Jesus, “From now on you will be catching people.” Simon, James, and John looked at the great crowd gathered on the sea shore to hear Jesus, to see Jesus, to find Jesus. And they put down their nets, and followed Jesus into the country, into the crowd, who needed more than anything to know the presence of the living God among them. Continue reading
Love all the way down
A sermon for the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany in Year C, the annual meeting of Epiphany parish, Euclid, and the Solemn Sung Eucharist at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland. The main text for this sermon is Paul’s ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged 1 Corinthians 1:3, Jeremiah 1:4-10, love, Luke 4, Year C Epiphany 4
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Water, wine, and justice like an ever-flowing stream
On sabbatical, I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I can’t begin to describe briefly the impact of walking that history of inhumanity and human dignity set up in opposition to one another, the weight of those ceilings, each one a century, and the heaviness of your footsteps as you climb closer to our own day of reckoning. Continue reading
over the water 