All rights reserved
© Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, 2011-2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
https://bookstore.upperroom.org/Products/1921/a-family-like-mine.aspxWhom Shall I Fear: Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence
https://www.amazon.com/Whom-Shall-Fear-Questions-Christians/dp/0835819671-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
RevGalBlogPals
Meta
Tag Archives: Matthew 18:21-35
Quality and quantity
This discourse about the community of mercy is exposed, laid bare, solved by Jesus’ unmathematical formula. Seven, the perfect number of creation, used biblically to represent what is holy, is itself multiplied until we no longer know even what the number is supposed to be. Seven, the number that crowns creation with sabbath, with rest, is multiplied toward the peace of God that passes understanding.
It is not the quantity of forgiveness that is in question, then, but the quality. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged forgiveness, gun violence, Matthew 18:21-35, racism, repentance, seventy times seven, Year A Proper 19
Leave a comment
Seventy times seven
How many hurts accumulate like straws under a camel’s nose before it sneezes, before the involuntary blast of anger, grief, ugliness propels one’s inside out, clutches at the throat like stone eggs, tears a slow, impassible river floating faded, sodden … Continue reading
No stray bullets
There are no stray bullets, just as there were no stray nails pounding themselves into the Cross. Continue reading
Absolute mercy
Josephs’ brothers were afraid that his mercy was not real, because they could not imagine being that merciful themselves. The servant was afraid that his king would change his mind and call in his debt after all, and his mistrust of mercy, and his failure to multiply it, made him do terrible things, and led to his own downfall, and perpetuated the systems of injustice that surrounded him. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged bail funds, debtors' prison, forgiveness, Genesis 50:15-21, Matthew 18:21-35, mercy, parables
Leave a comment
Year A Proper 19: forgiving
You remember the Joseph story: “Way way back many centuries ago, not long after the Bible began…” Jacob was the grandson of Abraham, and the father of the twelve tribes of Israel – in fact, it was Jacob who was … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged favouritism, forgiveness, Genesis 50:15-21, Jacob, Joseph, Matthew 18:21-35, parable
Leave a comment
over the water 