There are moments in Scripture where a poet-prophet like Isaiah seems to gather up all the fear, all the exhaustion, all the longing of a people under threat, and then answers it with a vision so unexpected, so extravagant in its hope, that it almost takes our breath away. Isaiah’s words today were spoken into a world that was collapsing. The Assyrian Empire—one of the most terrifying military forces the ancient world had ever known—was […]
On this final Sunday of the liturgical year, the lectionary places before us a strange and unsettling image of kingship. Not a coronation. Not a throne room. Not a ruler surrounded by splendor. Instead: a hill outside the city. A bruised and broken body. A sign nailed above a dying man’s head. And yet the Church insists—this is our King. For Christians, Christ’s kingship is revealed not in triumphal display but in the quiet, costly […]
When we turn to this passage from Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, we find ourselves face to face with language that sounds, frankly, a bit mysterious—and even unsettling. Paul is warning his readers not to be “quickly shaken in mind or alarmed,” even though rumors are circulating that the Day of the Lord has already come. He insists that there are still events to unfold: the “rebellion,” the revealing of the “lawless one,” and […]
There are seasons when poverty, or illness, or oppression — whether material or spiritual — hem us in so tightly that we can’t see where we’re going. It’s like walking through a forest so thick we can’t see the sky. And there are other seasons when we have so many options, so much abundance, that we’re adrift — like being at sea with no land in sight. We can see everything, but nothing stands out. […]
Look carefully at the outcast. Your salvation might very well depend on one of them. When a well dressed group of students pretended to have heart attacks in the hallways of the Port Authority – the only ones who reached out to them were the homeless people. When we realized what a financial pickle we were going to be in, we didn’t look to the bankers to see how they coped. We looked to the […]
This week’s Gospel contains an account of the final miracle, the last sign that Jesus does in John’s narrative. It’s a mirror of the first sign, at the Wedding in Cana. Jesus is providing abundant food, wine and bread to all of us, and that is the great sign that the Messiah is present, and the new realm of God has begun. And here’s the thing, on the other side of Easter, we are restored […]
God makes promises throughout the Scriptures that we, God’s Creation, will be protected, cherished and saved. But that isn’t happening now, and doesn’t seem to be true very often historically either. Is that because the words we read about God are meaningless? Or could it mean that God’s ways are so different than our ways that when God is acting in a decisve manner, we miss understand what is happening. Jesus laments that the people […]
An excellent point… Instead of trying to change the paradigms of society and culture, whole generations of preachers, scholars, and theologians have been asking how they can communicate the Gospel and make it understandable and relevant to the modern world, and in answer they have been trying to fit the Christian message to the paradigms of the community—otherwise, they argue, people today would not understand what Christianity is about. Torrance, T. F. (1980). The ground […]
An excerpt: It’s not a coincidence that the Church in the northern hemisphere has traditionally chosen to read and remember these prophetic stories of the light coming into the world at the time of the year when the darkness of the night around us reaches its fullest extent. This is the season of the longest nights of the year for us. The darkness is close behind and before us, with the day between the moments […]
I’m afraid I haven’t had time to record a sermon this weekend. I’ve been in Boston all day taking part in the Ordination service of Julia Whitworth as the XVII Bishop of Massachusetts. It has been a wonderful day filled with song, a fantastic sermon and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The main point in the sermon that I’m planning preaching in the morning at St. Stephan’s Church in Providence is how the misdirected […]
