[RCL] Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33 What does it mean to be family? What do we mean when we say we are part of a church family or God’s family? What about when the interests of our family conflict with other things that pull on us, demand our time and energy…

[RCL]: Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33 Imagine you are scrolling through your favorite social media site or looking at an article and you see an advertisement for a job. It catches your eye with its savvy fonts and colors, so you glance at it and read: Full-time, meaningful work you can…

It’s not every day that we read an entire book of the Bible in church. Well, today is no different, but we do come awfully close to reading an entire book from the New Testament. The book we read, almost in entirety, is Philemon. You may have never heard of it. It only makes an…

Somebody once made the remark, “Friends are God’s way of apologizing to us for our families.” One might ask, How shall we see our way through such a curmudgeonly statement into something edifying? However irritating the attitude, there is a grain of truth in this grouchy remark. Today’s gospel reading is tough, but a tough…

It seems that Christians are obsessed with counting sheep. How often do you hear Christians of all stripes asking each other about the size of each other’s congregations? Often we hear folks asking, “How many do you have on a Sunday morning?” We marvel at so-called mega-churches. We feel good when we see a large…

Born in 1496, John Colet was an English priest on the cusp of the English Reformation, the son of the Lord Mayor of London. He took an M.A. degree at Oxford before traveling to Italy to study canon and civil law, patristics, and Greek. He belonged to a group at Oxford known as the Platonic…

There’s a great saying in the South that goes like this: “That preacher’s just gone from preachin’ to meddlin’.” And that’s exactly what Jesus has done in today’s Gospel. He’s gone from preachin’ to meddlin’. “If you don’t hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, you cannot…

As in all things, let us begin with prayer to Almighty God.The Lord be with you.Let us pray, Lord God, you created all things, you arranged all things and in you we move, and breathe and have our being. Tutor our hearts so we can follow you. Empty our minds of the busyness of this…