Category Archives: sermon preparation

One or the other

One says, Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb; another, Thou shalt not covet the livestock. One says, Give as good as you get; another, Do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. … Continue reading

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Many dwelling places

There was a hill covered in cloud that resisted the imprecations of the wind that tossed the crows about and hurried us to shelter beneath a bare crag, eroded by the dwelling of the centuries, bodies it had harbored, of … Continue reading

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Unhinged

I am a gate, I swing this way and that, inviting you to step into my dance, leading with the song you have heard before: creak and sigh of hungry humanity herded like sheep by fear and faith by turns. … Continue reading

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Blessed

He breathed on them the scent of grave-clothes, myrrh, and aloes, the stench of forgiveness; I imagine that smells of olive oil pressed from the groves in the Garden of Gethsemane, drowning out with unction the fetor of betrayal and blood.  All day long they shed … Continue reading

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Preaching from the shadows

The sound of mallet on metal
wood and splintered flesh
ricochets around the city walls
shivering the fabric of
the crowd that clothes the alleyways
too often lost in thought and prayers
we fall without an echo
into the open grave Continue reading

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Afterwards

It was the following day that sealed it for him waking with the rooster an hour before dawn the darkness of the room unfamiliar tangled in bedsheets he shivered still straining his hope to conjure up that sun light and … Continue reading

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Living water

I have always loved the sea. Continue reading

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Born of water and the Spirit

I am not preaching this Sunday, and there was no little Lenten story/legend this morning, so consider this an offering to replace them both. ____________ You know, although it wasn’t recorded, that when God made Adam — dust of the … Continue reading

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Fall silent

A short (but true) story for the Sunday Last before Lent: “We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven” (2 Peter 1) _______ Every day, at around about eleven in the morning, the world stood still. Teachers fell quiet mid-lesson, … Continue reading

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Nativity

Not by might the almighty shoulders a way into the world, but on borrowed strength, the muscles of his mother conspiring to bring him to birth;  Not by right does he claim his throne but humbles himself to the stable stall and is fed by … Continue reading

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