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Category Archives: sermon
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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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
Keeping promises
I have no doubt that God was with me in that river, whose banks Jesus knew, whose rapids perhaps he had played in. I have no doubt that God would have stayed with me, whether I lived or died that day. But in order to remain alive, in that moment, I also needed my people, the little community of foreigners with whom I had set out that morning in a black tyre inner tube to float down the river towards the Sea of Galilee. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged baptism, baptismal covenant, community, Isaiah 43:2
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A baptism
In Galilee, a root gripped my foot,
the tree of life inverted, submerged … Continue reading
The people’s epiphany
When the wise men came to Herod with the news of a saviour, the establishment replied, “Yes, but that is not how we do things here. We know that God has promised something new, but we are happy with the old ways.” One doesn’t have to be as mad and as murderous as Herod in order to shoot down initiatives and new ideas that might, in fact, have been inspired by the heavens. Continue reading
Beholding glory
God’s grace and mercy have never left us, passing over us and shielding us from more than we can imagine; but how much glory can we handle, human as we are? Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged Christmas, Elijah, Glory, Incarnation, John 1:1-18, John 3:16, Moses, nine lessons and carols
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Christmas Eve: even unto Bethlehem
When we had had our fill of the manger, we headed out to the Shepherds’ Field, where the angels sang their Gloria, and announced peace to the weary and waiting world. Continue reading
over the water 