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Category Archives: story
A new creation
As the Ark drifted on the surface of creation for months, by biblical account, not for forty days, but forty days followed by one hundred and fifty days followed by a season of gradual abatement of the waters first from the uninhabitable mountain tops and only slowly to a level where a man and his family and somewhere between two and fourteen of every kind of animal in the world might have room to disembark – as life on the Ark stretched from month to month, its inhabitants must have found some sort of routine, some rhythm, some method of accounting for the days and their demands, but God knows, it cannot have felt anything like normal. And what followed, after the tide ebbed, after they all emerged, after Noah built an altar and made his sacrifice to God; what followed was a new creation, the sign of the rainbow in the sky. Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon, story
Tagged 1 Peter 3:13-22, Acts 17:22-31, COVID-19, new creation, new normal, Noah, Noah's Ark, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, quarantine, rainbow
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Easter 2: What Thomas saw
A sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter in 2020, preached from home. Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged COVID-19, doubting Thomas, Easter 2, mission
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Wednesday 2020: Cornerstone
Look for the cornerstone, smutted and mossed, every so often sandblasted clean, surprising anew; not the one five blocks up with date and name, but below, at ground level, hefting the weight of the world, unnoticed for the most part, … Continue reading
Posted in current events, holy days, lectionary reflection, story
Tagged COVID-19, Holy Week, Mark 12:1-11
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Why did this happen?
When Jesus and his disciples come across a blind man begging, the disciples ask a question that the sages have answered in various ways throughout the ages: why is there suffering in the world? Why do even the unarguably innocent – babies and children – suffer? Why do we live with these questions from birth and throughout our lives, even in the midst of joy, even in the midst of love, even with Jesus walking right next to us? Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon, story
Tagged coronavirus, COVID-19, John 9:1-41, Lent, pandemic, Psalm 23, suffering, theodicy
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The longest Lent
After forty days, he was tempted to give it up: the faith, the fast, the body, lay down among the dry bones. Continue reading
Posted in current events, story
Tagged coronavirus, Lent, Matthew 4:1-11, pandemic, social distancing
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Pray as though nobody’s listening
Oh, but what about those things that “our Father who is in secret” will see? And what will be their just reward? What is behind that other door, the one within our hearts and souls, which attempts to guard my guilt and my ungraceful, unpaintable, distressed and unfading mantras even from the sight of God, let alone myself? Continue reading
When we can’t see the end of the story
It can feel sometimes as though Jesus has withdrawn to the backwaters of Galilee, , and we do not know when we will see him again, nor whether he will come with whips and cords to clean out the temples of power, or even our own house; or whether he will come in chains, bowed down by the burdens of the principalities that still oppose the reign of God, its justice, its mercy, its peace; or whether he will come in glory, a light to shine the world toward salvation. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged gospel, grief, Luke 2:22-40, Nunc Dimittis, Simeon and Anna, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, waiting
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Kittens
There is a lot going on in the world, in the country, in our communities and families.
Sometimes, the best antidote to overwhelm is to give in to [ahem – kittens] the overwhelming, particular, peculiar love of God. Continue reading
Dreamers
On the night before Jesus died, his closest friend denied three times that he even knew the man. In the nights before Jesus was born, Joseph dreamed. Would we be ready to stake our reputation on the acknowledgement that yes, Jesus is the Son of God; that yes, the way of the Cross, the way of self-giving, selfless, vengeance-denying love is the way to life, liberty, and the pursuit of heaven; that yes, Jesus, born of Mary, is God Incarnate, Emmanuel, God with us? Continue reading
Posted in advent meditations, holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged Advent, Incarnation, Joseph, Virgin birth
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Be patient
When our children were small and there were too many things to do with the two hands that I have, one of the children, wise and observant, noticed that often their requests were met with the same, repeated phrase. I realized this one day when they asked me, “for a drink, now please, and not in a minute.”
Be patient, beloved. Continue reading
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