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Tag Archives: church
What is the church for?
How do we let people know that we are here for them? Not, as James said a couple of weeks ago, only if they are properly turned out and prompt in their arrival, if they know their way around the service, and sing in tune. I love that in my twelve years with you, there have always been people who come late, leave early, get up and stretch mid-service, act like human beings in the middle of divine worship. Just as Jesus became human with us. And that matters, so much, that we can be human in church, drawn toward the one in whose image we all share. How else do we let people know that we are here if they are sick, if they are suffering, if they are singing, if they are sighing, that they can be human here? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged Christianity, church, faith, God, human, James 5:13-20, Jesus, worship, Year B Proper 21
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The ship
A sermon on Mark 4:35-41 – Jesus stills the storm Jesus, do you not care that we are perishing? Many years ago, as I was preparing for ordination, I was assigned to do fieldwork at a church far, far … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged church, Mark 4:35-41, storm, vocation, Word of God, Year B Proper 7
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Which story do we tell?
A fever could be, can be deadly. It is debilitating. It wrings the humanity out of one. She couldn’t tell how long she had lain there, hovering between earth and heaven, but when Jesus came, and took her hand, heaven and earth came together as one, and she felt that new kingdom flowing through her veins, and her heart stopped only long enough to miss a beat as she leapt for joy, and in gratitude ran through the house to celebrate with cakes and oil and wine, to serve and celebrate him who had healed her. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged annual meeting, church, disciples, healing, Isaiah 40:31, Mark 1:29-31, service, Year B Epiphany 5
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Perspective
Writing the annual report like teaching a child to draw perspective, moulding a year into blocks, trying to keep to scale but death is slippery and shows between the lines; grief will not hold its shape. Joy alone stays along … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, story
Tagged annual meeting, annual report, church, grief, joy, writing
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Who do you say that I am?
It is an apt place for new beginnings. Named and renamed, with Simon Peter’s words the Baals, the gods of Pan and of Rome, the idolatry of empire, all were buried beneath the cataracts, and the name of the living God was spoken over the water, like a baptism. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Banias, church, Confession of Christ, names, naming
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Follow
The man in the story is caught on the cusp of conversion, teetering on the brink of repentance, swaying toward Jesus but anchored by the lifestyle he has always known, the way it has always been. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Amos, church, Jesus, Mark 10:17-31, Year B Proper 23
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Less than forty years
We have been in this wilderness for a year now. It will not take us 40 years to reach its far side, but it will remain a part of our faith story, shaping our lament and our hope for years to come. It has physically altered our prayers and our liturgy. It has called us, like Noah, like Abraham, like Moses, into new ways of being and new understandings of God’s presence with us. Continue reading
Ascending
An arpeggio rising beyond our ear, they who strum and straddle the lines between heaven and the earth, the angels incorporeal, they think us foolish to strain after touch, sight, sounds, the echo in our marrow of a descending chord … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer
Tagged Acts 1:10-11, angels, Ascension, church, contemplative prayer, music
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The great and the good
And now Jesus was stuck on the floor with a sleeping baby, his hands full, his feet with no feeling left in them, and the child’s mother had gone back to work. There was nothing for it but to continue to wait on the baby, serving it with patience and with love. … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged children, church, greatness, Jesus, love, Mark 8:27-38, Year B Proper 20
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A house of cedar
“Wherever you have gone,” God says, “I have gone with you. Whatever trials you have faced, I have faced beside you. Whatever dangers befell you, I stood before you. What makes you think that in order to keep me by your side, you have to build me a cedar box, store me like cloth in mothballs?” Continue reading
over the water 