Those of You Who Have…, Easter Day (B) – 2009

April 12, 2009

Those of you who have nearly lost someone near and dear will find the gospel today within your experience. In wartime, families hope to avoid and yet expect the knock on the door. There stand uniformed and grim-looking people who have come to announce that a young person is missing in action or dead. Others […]

We Encounter Enthusiasm…, Epiphany 2 (B) – 2009

January 18, 2009

Today’s gospel reading is a delicious story. We encounter enthusiasm, prejudice, and extraordinary insight all in one short story. It is sometimes good for us to remember that we get above ourselves when we regard the people of our Lord’s day as being so inferior to ourselves as not to be taken too seriously. Obviously […]

Jesus Was Good at…, Proper 28 (A) – 2008

November 16, 2008

Jesus was good at providing difficult stories. No doubt they were as hard to hear standing in a group in Palestine as they are from our pews today. If we have sympathy for anyone in today’s gospel reading, it is probably for the poor person who was deprived of the gift once given, just because […]

Try As We May…, Proper 15 (A) – 2008

August 17, 2008

Try as we may, we do not always find ourselves comfortable when we are among people we don’t know. Visiting a new church can be nerve wracking, unless we are among the extroverted class. Even within our own country we find cultural and ethnic differences that may challenge the best of us. Traveling abroad may […]

So Do Not Worry…, Proper 3 (A) – 2008

May 25, 2008

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” At first sight the lessons today seem to give us confusing messages. On the one hand we are called by Saint Paul “stewards of the mysteries of God.” On the other hand Jesus tells us […]

Covenant Is an Interesting Word, Epiphany 1 (A) – 2008

January 13, 2008

“Covenant” is an interesting word. Mind you Episcopalians hear so much about the “Baptismal Covenant” nowadays that it is in danger of becoming one of those pious slogans often used and seldom contemplated. When The Book of Common Prayer was revised in the 1970s, some of the leading thinkers in our church were developing a […]

Do You Sometimes Get…, Proper 23 (C) – 2007

October 14, 2007

Do you sometimes get turned off by “religion talk”? Or do you think that the vocabulary and jargon used by many Christians somehow makes an ordinary idea so religious that it doesn’t apply in day-to-day living? Such a word is “grace.” It sounds so pious and out of reach. So when a prayer, one of […]

Jesus Had Special Friends, Proper 11 (C) – 2007

July 22, 2007

Jesus had special friends. Among them were Mary and Martha of Bethany and their brother Lazarus. Some modern scholars think that Lazarus was “the Beloved Disciple” of the Gospel and the Epistle, and the disciple at the foot of the cross. We won’t really know until we are in the next life. Then we can […]

Perhaps In A Reaction…, Lent 3 (C) – 2007

March 11, 2007

Perhaps in a reaction to a period of history in which it was thought good not to over-praise each other, we’ve spent a generation “affirming” each other. It can be difficult, particularly when we are asked to affirm someone who has just bored us to death with the most awful twaddle. Lent is a difficult […]

Eternal Truth, Christmas Day (III) – 2006

December 25, 2006

We are all used to party political agendas. We’ve just survived an election season and although there’s two years to go before the next general election, the television networks daily parade possible candidates before us and we hear their plans to transform America. We can count on their plans being expensive. To get them enacted […]

It Is an Extraordinary Scene, Christ the King (B) – 2006

November 26, 2006

It is an extraordinary scene. Into the room swaggers the representative of the dominant nation on earth, wearing the uniform that spells power and authority. He probably sinks languidly onto his couch. As the local focus of Empire, this man is burdened with the daily responsibility of ruling probably the most difficult of the colonies. […]

Sounds Like the Office…, Proper 24 (B) – 2006

October 22, 2006

Sounds like the office doesn’t it? Two up-and-coming members of the team take the boss aside and ask to be made vice presidents. Maybe they thought Jesus had an easy time talking, healing, and feeding. People often assume that a genius is someone who does things without much effort at all. It just happens. They […]