I don’t have too many more opportunities to share my thoughts with the folks at St. George’s.  Here’s what I thought was important to share today:

Imagine the hottest person you can, man or woman, whatever floats your boat.  For me it would be a woman.  Imagine that she’s the most alluring thing you’ve ever seen.  She’s everything you’ve ever wanted, and more.  She’s smarter than you are.  She’s better read.  She’s more athletic.  She’s kinder.  She see’s right through you.  She looks at you, and she just knows everything there is to know about you.  Are you going to approach her?

I’m betting you don’t.  She’s simply overwhelming.  She puts you to shame. You know, on a basic level, that she’s simply out of your league.  There is simply no way in hell you’ll ever measure up to her.  We are simply ashamed to approach her. (more…)

[This is something I have used for Palm Sunday/Good Friday off and on for years.  With retirement looming June 1, I'm not sure I'll have the opportunity to use this again.  So I'm sharing it here.  Permission is given to use this, but only if I'm given credit as the author.]

After dinner, you and your friends go for a walk, and stop in the park.  You ask them to wait for you, while you go away by yourself and think about what’s coming down.

It’s not a pretty picture.  It fills you with dread.  Your soul is so filled with sorrow that it almost leads you into despair.  If only there were some other way …  ”Father, take this cup from me …  But no, this is why I’m here:  to do your will.”

In your distress, you return to your friends, seeking some comfort from them, from their presence — there is so little time.  And they’re sleeping for God’s sake.  Couldn’t they be there for you this once? (more…)

Ok – this started out as an idea that didn’t quite gel.  Then I got a real start at my clergy writing group.  And it evolved into this sermon:


So, here are these Greeks, these Hellenists, these outsiders to the Jewish faith.  They’ve been hearing about Jesus.  There’s just something about Jesus … (more…)

I think we have a problem when we talk about Jesus as our king — analogous, perhaps, to the problem we have when we talk about gospel love.  We simply don’t use the words “king” and “love” the way Jesus used them.

For us, in every day American English, the word “love” is about what we feel.  For Jesus, the word “love” was an action verb about what we do.  We want to pair the words “love” and “hate” as opposites.  I suspect pairing the words “love” and “kill” would come closer to being opposites, as Jesus used the word “love.” (more…)

“… Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so …
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
and death shall be no more …”

I thought of these words, from Dylan Thomas and John Donne respectively, when my friend and colleague, Marcia, died just before this All Saints’ Day.  I think they capture some of the tension I feel between my sense of loss and anger when someone dies and my belief in the promise of fullness of life with God in the communion of saints. (more…)

This is the sermon I didn’t give this morning in Fort Bragg:

This morning, we hear the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.  Like many stories of Jesus’ life, this is a story about expanding the boundaries of who counts with God. (more…)

I know I’ve been quiet for a while; busy with church, prayer life, music and reading.  And that may continue for a while.  But I did finally get back to my clergy writing group.  And here is what I did for our free write today:

“What I’m thinking about is preaching and jazz.  (more…)

I preached a homily at the celebration remembering the life of Bruce Buel, the  brother of one of our active parishioners, this afternoon.  This is it: 

I never met Bruce. Cathy talked about him, and how much his presence meant in her life. And how she misses him, now that he’s gone. And the fact that he was afraid to die. And how much that troubled her. But I never met Bruce. I did not have that privilege. (more…)

Well, I had to fight the balloons.  But for the moment you can hear my Pentecost sermon (about how God litlerally had to set the apostles on fire to get them out of the room and into the world) in our audio files here (for May 23, 2010).

One of the blogs I follow is The Sarcastic Lutheran.  And she recently posted a sermon on Haiti and where God is in this picture in which she said:

This week’s events bring with them a lot of questions about God, and none of them have to do with parties.  One atheist blog I read this week sneeringly used the earthquake to make a case against believing in God at all.  The writer implying that he could not believe in a God who would inflict such suffering on so many people, which made me admit that according to that definition I must be an atheist too because I don’t believe in that God either.

She goes on to talk about the marriage feast as Cana and what kind of God Jesus shows himself to be.  If you are interested, you can find Nadia’s sermon here.

Next Page »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,036 other followers