Tag Archives: kingdom of God

Teach us to pray

The story that Jesus tells suggests that we are in this together; that while one person is begging for bread, the one who is secure, safe and comfortable and tucked up in bed with their well-fed children, is the one who is called upon to answer, “and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” Continue reading

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The kingdom of God is at hand

The kingdom of God has drawn near. The kingdom of God is at hand. That’s how the Revised Standard Version translates Jesus’ opening message: that the kingdom of God is at hand, at your fingertips, so close that it is almost … Continue reading

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Fisher

You flee again to Galilee, another Herod, another threat, kings and prophets always at odds and you, raised with the memory of blood and fire, fishing for another way, the kingdom of God, as it were, silver-scaled and just, within … Continue reading

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Word, will, work

A sermon for September 27, 2020, at the Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio. This week Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state at the Capitol. The US passed a grim milestone with 200,000 deaths from COVID-19. One … Continue reading

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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

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The myth of redemptive violence

We can move mountains, if our thoughts and prayers for the latest victims of violence are backed by faith in the one who loves us, rather than the myths sold us by our gun suppliers; if we remember who is was that sowed the Garden in the first place, and placed us in it. Continue reading

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Guarding the dead

An earlier version of this post was published at the Episcopal Cafe on September 27, 2017 I had been traveling in a country not previously visited; we drove past houses, both small and a little larger, surrounded by fortressed fences, … Continue reading

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Election day prayer

“My kingdom is not of this world, you say, yet, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” And so we wait, and watch, and vote, and pray, “Thy kingdom come,” all the while hoping that each small act of kindness, … Continue reading

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The chasms fixed between us

A sermon on Luke 16:19-31: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus The parable describes a way of life which starkly separates the rich man from the poor, the privileged from the dispossessed. It describes how these differences and … Continue reading

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Year C Proper 14: faith, hope, and a promise

A promise delayed, but not deferred … You know all of those charts – we’ve all seen them – showing how much wealth is in the world, how much food, how much of God’s good plenty to go around? Enough … Continue reading

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