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Homilies (Page 76)

Beyond the Here and Now

Here’s the short version of our reading from Acts of the Apostles: Judas gets replaced, and the apostles move on. Peter points out the importance of having 12 eyewitnesses to the resurrection and the need for Judas’ seat at the table to be filled, and two understudies (Barsabbas and Matthias) are identified. Praying for God’s help in their choice, they said, “Lord, show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry.” They then cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias…

Discovering Your True Self

Have you ever had the opportunity to meet somebody through someone you already know, and you want to meet this person because they have respect for him? I recently had an experience through one of my favorite spiritual writers, Richard Rohr. You have heard me probably mention him in homilies several times. He has quoted quite a bit, someone else that I recently discovered through writing and through talks he gave, and his name is Parker Palmer…

The Way of the Shepherd

Who is Jesus, exactly? And if we follow Jesus, who then, are we? The disciples must have been asking this question over and over again as their relationship with Jesus grew. I imagine that with each new teaching, with every miracle that they witnessed for the first time, they had to ask themselves, “What’s going on here? Who is Jesus, anyway?…

Youth Mission to New Orleans

One week ago yesterday, Saturday the 4th of April, 10 high school students and 6 adults met here in the church parking lot at 6:30am and by 7:30 were loaded and driving away toward New Orleans. Our youth coordinator, Fred Lowry, had a vision in his mind of joining with the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and assisting with the repairs and renewal of the city’s poorest neighborhoods which were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. And he worked for over a year to see that vision come to fruition…

Look Through a Different Eyepiece

My daughter Rebecca is fascinated with astronomy. So this past Christmas we bought her a telescope. And the telescope came with an eyepiece. So you aim the telescope up at the sky and you look through the eyepiece. And it was just incredible what we were able to see. The moon seemed so much closer and some of the stars in the sky, some of the planets, you could see a little more clearly. It was a fascinating experience; it was nearly a spiritual experience…

Remembering Rightly

When we read the story of the Exodus, I seem to always notice when the Israelites, finding themselves lost and hungry in the wilderness, turn to God, the very one who delivered them from slavery and oppression, and point the finger of blame. Why, they ask of Moses and of God, did you get us into this situation? We had it so good back there in Egypt! Why did we have to come here, where we are suddenly vulnerable and exposed? …

Clown Ministry

Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Psalm 22, Hebrews 10:16-25, John 18:1-19:1-37
We live in violent times. It’s hard to deny it whenever we hear the words Columbine or Virginia Tech or more recently Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Binghamton, New York, or Pine Lake Nursing Home right here in our own state. Incredibly, in my mind at least, it’s still legal for gun shops to sell assault weapons … for what earthly reason I can’t imagine. We hear over and over of those who kill with guns or baseball bats or their bare hands…

Be Here

Tonight marks the beginning of the end of Jesus’ life. And the end is marked by something that is at the very heart of Jesus’ ministry and life: Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus loved them to the end. And his last gift to them was a gift of love. This last evening wasn’t just about the Eucharist, and it wasn’t just about what Jesus was going through in these last few hours before his death, and it wasn’t even about the betrayal that was to come, even though that was a part of the story…

The Meaning of Palm Sunday

As we progress through this Holy Week we will continue to walk through the events that have been described in the passion reading, ultimately leading us to next Sunday with the celebration of the resurrection. What I’d like to do this morning is to share a few thoughts, not so much on the passion reading, but on the gospel reading that we read outside with the blessing of the palms, from Mark’s gospel about Palm Sunday…

Stories of Yellow Man

I’d like to begin by speaking about a Navajo storyteller named Yellow Man. Yellow Man hosted an anthropologist for several years. This anthropologist was in search of artifacts of the Navajo oral history. And a relationship bloomed between them that lasted a whole generation, until Yellow Man died. The anthropologist was permitted to record Yellow Man’s stories onto audio tape, but only after promising that those stories would only be played when they were seasonally appropriate…