[RCL] Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Canticle 15 (or 3); 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28 We are already a week away from Christmas, and for good reason, this Sunday is called “Joy Sunday”. This is because of the exhortation given to us by St. Paul at the beginning of the reading from 1 Thessalonians:…

[RCL] Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Canticle 15 (or 3); 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28 If you have ever stood at the rim of a canyon, you know what it is to comprehend the immense majesty of emptiness. These clefts in the earth, carved by the incessant flow of water over millennia, are rocky…

Listen to the words of Isaiah: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. Listen to the words of Mary of Nazareth: He has cast…

Inflection is everything. What do Americans call the game of table tennis? Do we say, “ping pong”? No. We call it “ping pong.” In English, men’s names such as David, Matthew, Isaac, Daniel, are emphasized on the first syllable. We tend to inflect with emphasis. In other languages inflection is handled differently. In Turkish, for example, even…

Imagine the scene. You are downtown in one of the world’s great cities. You’re standing at the main entrance of a huge, opulent hotel, whose solid stone walls soar upward for many floors. The canopied entrance features a red carpet that crosses the sidewalk to the street, and brass fittings that gleam like gold. It’s…

A Sunday school teacher in Kansas reports this conversation in her class: “If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?” she asked the children in her Sunday school class. “No!” the children all answered. “If I…

Sometimes the folks who put the Lectionary—the lists of Sunday readings—together do a really wonderful job. Sometimes it’s questionable, as in August, but today it’s a perfect pairing. John the Baptist, the Gospel tells us, was traveling around baptizing people. This was a departure from traditional Jewish practice, and that—and the fact that he was…

Some signs are sacred; some are secular. Some familiar; some unrecognized. Each Advent sign points to the one who first came to us in the obscurity of Bethlehem and to the same one who is now to come “in great glory to judge the living and the dead.” Each Advent sign points to Jesus. Four…

It’s because the Baptist’s voice is so cold, urgent and disturbing that the Judaean priests and Levites come out to demand in effect: «Who do you think you are?» That’s what this morning’s Gospel dialogue is all about. And the Baptist’s answer is even more disconcerting. He is shaking up things as they are; he…