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Tag Archives: hope
Trinity Sunday, 2019
Within God’s perfect being is the reconciliation of relationship, the interplay of love, the communication of difference and solidarity. Those aspects of God promise that we are understood, that we are accepted in all of our difference, diversity, struggle, and longing; that within the heart of a God who knows all about it from experience, we are healed. Within the heart of a God who knows even brokenness, betrayal, the shadow sides of love, we are recognized, accepted, restored. Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, sermon
Tagged baptism, connecting communities, hope, Trinity Sunday
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Why have we come here? Good Friday 2019
We come not to glory in his death, but out of fear of our own; and not only, nor even the death of our bodies, may they never endure such pain as his; but the death of our souls, the diminishing returns of our humanity, the erosion of love and the weary wearing away of compassion. On the cross, we see the destitution of our humanity, what it has come to, that we would sacrifice Christ to keep an unquiet peace, and pile on the death of God to weight the scales of injustice. We see where it could all end up, if we would prefer instruments of death to a way of life that makes us vulnerable to the demands of love and of mercy. Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, homily, sermon, story
Tagged angels, cross, Good Friday, hope, Jesus, reserved sacrament
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Friday
In God’s gospel truth, the day comes when nothing is to be done, except to shiver below the lowering sky, crouch within the trembling earth, wind down the body into the new-hewn tomb * * * The birds are the … Continue reading
Healing the holidays homily 2014 edition: holding out on hope
Six months before the Angel Gabriel to earth came down, as the story goes, he was hanging out in Jerusalem, visiting with Zechariah. Zechariah and Elizabeth were much older than Mary – which is not to say that the young … Continue reading
Posted in homily
Tagged Christ, Christmas, despondency, Elizabeth, God, hope, Incarnation, Zechariah
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Hoping and praying
Illuminated by hope, prayer chatters across the garden fence between earth and heaven, clouding the air with gossipy details… When hope has set beyond the horizon, prayer retreats into the house, slams the door, draws down the shades, unwilling to submit to … Continue reading
Posted in poetry
Tagged depression and spirituality, hamlet, heaven, hope, optimism, pessimism, prayer
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Year C Proper 27: No such thing as a stupid question?
You know how we always tell each other, and especially our children, that there’s no such thing as a stupid question? I have to think that the Sadducees were pushing the envelope on this one. It wasn’t because they were … Continue reading
Year C Proper 12: What is the world coming to?
What is the world coming to? How many times have we had to ask ourselves that question over the past few months, the past few years? When I told people abroad on vacation where I came from, they had heard … Continue reading
Hope
There is a Collect that I pray each morning as I wake up. Actually, I have to start it over a couple of times, because it really is my awakening prayer, and often I wake up more than once and … Continue reading
The spiritual gift of doubt
Blessed are those who can live with certainty, who can bear the burden of sureness. Because in certainty there is no need for hope; sureness has no need for trust. Some of us are not so strong. We cannot live … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, meditation, sermon preparation
Tagged certainty, Comforter, doubt, fear, hope, John 20:19-31, Thomas Sunday, Year C Easter 2
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Ash Wednesday
There is, on occasion, a disconnect between our words and our actions. We smile through gritted teeth as we make polite conversation with someone we do not like. We have profound and prolonged conversations about liberty and justice as we … Continue reading
Posted in homily, sermon
Tagged 12-17, 16-21, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, Ash Wednesday, fast, hope, hypocrisy, Isaiah 58:1-12, Jesus, Joel 2:1-2, Matthew 6:1-6, Psalm 51
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