It may be tempting sometimes to think of church as a predictable place, a haven where the liturgy becomes soothingly familiar and nothing much ever changes and we can basically sit back and relax. And then along come readings like the ones we heard this morning, readings that begin and end with surprise and that tell us that God is…
Why was Jesus baptized? What led Jesus to take that plunge into the Jordan River? John the Baptist was preaching repentance from sin, but Jesus had no sin. He had nothing to repent and nothing to confess. He was the Savior, the Son of God, living with unbroken faithfulness to the Father. He didn't need to be baptized by John. …
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Amen.
In most sermons, the preacher usually tries to find just the right
anecdote or story to illustrate the main point. But on this holy morning, there's no need for another story. Today
How did the angel come to Mary? Did Gabriel come in a rush of wings, like a gust of wind suddenly blowing in through the window? Or did the angel come as gently as snow, quietly approaching from the garden or descending from above, drawing near so silently that Mary had to look up, she had to turn her head:…
My son Sam is fifteen, and he's been asports fan all his life. In the summer, he follows baseball, and whenhe was a kid, I'd hear him shout, "The Red Sox rule!" In thefall, because his father grew up in Wisconsin, Sam would announce withgreat satisfaction, "The Green Bay Packers rule!" I alwayssmiled when I heard the exuberance i
What do you make of today's Gospel? It's a prickly one, no doubt about it, complete with a raging king who sends out his troops to burn down a city and later commands his attendants to bind an unfortunate man without a wedding robe and "throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"…
Today is September 11, 2005, four years to the day after September 11, 2001, and the end of a week in which once again we've been shocked by images of extraordinary violence and suffering on American soil. This time it wasn't New York but New Orleans. This time it wasn't crashing airplanes and falling towers but crashing waves and falling…
Today’s parable of the sower brings me back to a crystal-clear summer morning many years ago. I am standing in the hallway by the front door, trying to get everything organized so that my son will arrive on time for his first day of summer camp. The lunch-box is ready with the foods that this particular seven-year-old will be likely…
My name is Margaret Bullitt-Jonas and I am an Episcopal priest. I speak as a Christian, and faith tells me that we stand here in the presence of the God who loved us and all Creation into being. According to the sacred story, God made human beings from earth, breathes life into our nostrils, and charges us to care for…
What would it be like to be so fired with a vision of God’s justice and mercy that you just couldn’t help but speak about it? What if your experience of God was so vivid and so visceral that you couldn’t contain it, couldn’t keep it to yourself, but you had to express it, had to share it, had to…
