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Once Pentecost and Trinity Sunday have passed, the church comes into “Ordinary Time.” For many months now, we will have ample opportunity to explore concretely what the effects are of God’s mighty acts of salvation in our lives together. On this July 4 Sunday, as we celebrate this country’s Independence Day, the Ordinary Time lectionary—in…
No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God. What kind of harsh statement is this? And exclusive, too. How about unrealistic? Undoable? Ridiculous? OK, maybe now we are getting carried away. But when you read this, do you have a nagging question in the…
[Note: One of the joys of the RCL readings is that we get course readings in the Old Testament—such as the Elijah cycle we get this week. Pairing it with the Luke 8 story gives us some new ways of thinking and talking about God and healing.] Elijah and the Gerasene Demoniac are two important…
It would be interesting to look more closely at the last two stories we have just heard. They are great stories, and really very important. They both talk about the same things, and they both say two of the really important words of the Gospel. In Galatians, Paul is describing what must have been one…
Today we find ourselves at a midway point in our travel through the Christian Year. Since Advent, our focus has been largely on major events in the story of Jesus: his coming and manifestation, his suffering and triumph, and his gift of the Spirit. Until Advent comes again, our focus will be largely on what…
One can imagine the followers of Jesus huddled in the Upper Room holding endless discussions. It must have been rather like one of those vestry meetings where the members have been challenged to do the impossible and haven’t yet plucked up the courage to say that the proposal is impossible. Jesus had told them to…
Charles Lloyd, the world renowned tenor sax, flute, and virtually anything-like-a-woodwind virtuoso, who gave us Forest Flower at Monterey Pop, and Billy Higgins, the quintessential West Coast jazz drummer and sideman for literally hundreds of recordings of the past 50 years or so, worked on an extended suite in the months leading up to Higgins’…
The elderly and rheumy-eyed bishop climbed to the pulpit slowly and with difficulty. While he recovered from the effort, the congregation noted the kindness, wisdom, and experience evident on his face. He smiled a wan smile and hunched his shoulders in that familiar gesture of despair and said, “Whenever I have to preach from the…
We are poised today on the threshold of the Ascension, with Pentecost rising on the horizon. The reading from John’s Gospel today reflects that. It is part of the long love-letter that scholars call Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse” in which Jesus promises his friends that although the time has come for him to depart, he will…
[Y]ou shall love your neighbor as yourself… Leviticus 19:18 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. John 13:34 Here we have, from two separate stories and two separate times, the instruction to love each other. The first is from…
In a little town in a little church in southwest Missouri, the children and their Sunday school teacher were talking about Jesus. “Did Jesus speak English or Spanish?” the children wanted to know. For the most part, their parents speak Spanish as their “first” language. Their teachers, for the most part, speak English. The kids…
For centuries, in many parts of the Early Church, virtually all baptisms were reserved for the Great Vigil of Easter. The entire year was built around this, and the centrality of Easter Baptisms was shown in many ways. One of these ways is still very much with us. The readings from scripture we hear during…
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