In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus tells a parable about wise and foolish maidens and a wedding banquet. In the parable the wise ones prepare for the eventuality that the wedding banquet will be late in starting. The foolish ones don’t – and when it does start late, they are not able to enter. We are in a moment today when we are asked to prepare for what is expected to be a challenging winter. […]
Is there something for the Church to say to the Nation in this moment? The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Michael Curry preached a stem-winder of a sermon that does a pretty great job of answering that question. In the second part of the sermon he says: We don’t think of it this way very often but love for each other is a value on which our democracy depends. On the […]
The Cross transforms the suffering in our lives and allows the experience and the associated pain to transform us into a new creature fit for a new creation. The lives of the Saints show us how this happens and demonstrates the power of the Holy Spirit to allow them, and us, to overcome the momentary afflictions and become radiant beings of light.
When Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment in the Law, he quotes from two different places in Hebrew Scripture. He refuses to simply weigh one part of the Law, as more important than another, saying for instance that the moral demands of the law are greater than the ceremonial aspects. In doing so he makes two paths to God equivalent. I don’t know that we’ve yet to fully grasp the implications of that […]
The 22nd Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is filled with attempts to trap Jesus into saying something that would create a crisis for him. This week there’s an attempt to create division between him and the Imperial forces. There will be attempts in the coming weeks to create division between him and various branches of the religious community. There will be an attempt to make him either reveal his mission or to risk rejection by the […]
When the people in the wilderness lose patience and just want things to be normal again, they turn from God who expects moral behavior and create a God who extracts wealth to bring prosperity. And when God threatens to let them suffer the consequences of their choice, Moses pleads with God to remember the promises made to Abraham and his descendants who all chose, ultimately to do the moral things that God taught them would […]
The words of the Bible are not ours to use as weapon or tool against others, they’re the path we travel to transform ourselves. When we imagine that we can somehow possess God’s truth exclusively rather then recognize that we are merely tenants in the Lord’s vineyard, we begin to imagine that the world and others are ours to do with as we want. The truth is that we are given a form of stewardship […]
There are moments when we are confronted with making a choice. Sometimes those happen in a moment of overwhelming crisis with massive consequences. Sometimes the choices seem small and inconsequential but it turns out that the choice transforms your life. In this week’s Gospel reading, the religious authorities are confronted with a choice. They reject the choice. And in so doing they turn away from the truth. Sometimes we have to choose. And God’s grace […]
God transforms us in the wilderness as we journey from being in bondage to being the people of the promised land. But the transformation comes with pain and parts of the journey are filled with fear and anxious longing. Out of that fear and pain we look backward, longing for the certainty we had even though we were not free or fully yet the people of God. It feels like our national journey towards a […]
Refusing to forgive other people for the things that they did to you is like you taking poison as way of hurting them. There is one way out of the nightmare of violence, anger and revenge. It is to forgive others – even if they haven’t asked for your forgiveness. Jesus makes this point again and again. I don’t know that I’ve yet to fully act in the way he asks me to act. But […]
