The First Letter of St. Peter was written to the newly baptized in a dispersed community across Asia Minor. It imagines a new family emerging, a family of marginalized people and powerful people gathered together. It teaches us what it looks like to overcome evil by doing good.
Sermon for Sunday, Lent 5A, 2020 The readings for this weekend speak to God’s power over for the forces of death and destruction. They testify to our collective memory of how Jesus entered human history and reshaped our story forever. Today, perhaps more than ever before in my life, I need to hear this teaching. I’m struggling each day to not give up to despair. It feels like so much has been taken from us. […]
Today we are reeling from the news of the senseless and evil violence done to the innocent worshipers at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Our elder sisters and brothers in Judaism are God’s Chosen people and nothing will separate them from the Covenant their ancestors made with Holy and Living One. I ask Episcopalians across Rhode Island to please add this prayer to God asking for rest for the departed (El Maleh Rachamim) to […]
I’ve been reading and working through the implications of Rene Girard’s insights into human relationships for years – particularly the way that Girard unlocks a new way of reading the biblical texts. If you’ve heard me preach or teach over the years you probably know how major an influence Girard has been on my thinking. There’s a wonderful resource “Teaching Non-violent Atonement” that’s been posting a regular Wednesday sermon that demonstrates how a preacher can […]
Dan Edwards, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada writes in his Good Friday sermon this year: We live in a world that worships success. We have little use for the old religion of self-denial. We practice disciplines of self-coddling. The chaplain of a national Episcopal group this year actually wrote a Lenten letter urging us to go to a spa and relax in sensual delight for our Lenten discipline. Our society averts its eyes […]
