[RCL] Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 “No man is an island,” wrote the 17th-century English priest and poet John Donne, and although we might agree with this sentiment in principle, we struggle to live into it. Donne desired his hearers to understand their fundamental interdependence even when religious and political conflicts…

[RCL]: Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23 Let us begin with an invocation of the Holy Spirit by John Henry Newman: Come, O Holy Spirit.Come as Holy Fire and burn in us,Come as Holy Wind and cleanse us,Come as Holy Light and lead us,Come as Holy Life and dwell within us.Convict us, convert…

Jesus has such a heart for his church.  In this parable and its explanation, he’s not only addressing his first disciples but, as with all scripture, he’s addressing us too.  This parable could be a way to get us to do a little soil sampling of our hearts, a little analysis to see what kind…

“You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (Romans 8:9) We don’t often think of it, but of all the New Testament literature, St. Paul’s letters are the oldest sources we have about Jesus – predating the gospels by a couple of decades. And Paul writes that for those who…

Southern California is a maze of concrete freeways: two lanes, four lanes, eight lanes, high-occupancy vehicle lanes, special-use lanes, bus lanes, peak-hour reversible-direction lanes, and more. A literal maze of concrete interconnecting over 8,000 square miles. Southern California drivers fear the radio announcement that a sig alert has been issued on their route. A “sig…

Today’s gospel reading is very familiar – the parable of the four soils. Many of us learned it in Sunday school. Millions enjoyed the graphic enactment of the parable in the movie “Godspell.” For centuries, paintings and stained-glass art have represented it. Easy to remember because of the vivid description, we readily envision an ancient…

Everybody knows the old bit about optimists and pessimists—how a pessimist says the glass is half empty and an optimist says the same glass is half full. It’s a familiar platitude. But did you ever stop to think about how terribly important the issue here is? It really matters how you understand that glass. What…

Today’s lessons celebrate one of the most overwhelming aspects of God’s nature — abundance. The very existence and creation of everything, us included, demonstrates God as the ultimate giver. So awesome is God’s ability to do this, that even in the midst of broken lives and broken dreams, we humans can experience this abundance. So…

The “parable of the sower” is one of the special parables in the New Testament because Jesus interprets it for us himself. A sower went out to sow grain, presumably wheat, and the seeds were broadcast by hand. So, once the seeds were thrown, there was no controlling where they would land. The seed fell…