Matthew 2:1-12
From the earliest of our traditions, Christmas falls in the winter, with its shortened days. The ancients lit fires to break the spell of winter, those darkening days, with the hope of bringing back the sun and its longer days and the good fortune that came with it, or so they hoped…

Here we are on the fourth Sunday of Advent, that Sunday when the sense of the season begins to shift toward Christmas space. The image before us is the image of preparing ourselves for Jesus’ coming…

2 Luke 22:33-43
Many of us have hopeful pictures in our lives. We might call them “dream pictures,” pictures that are early set in us and are often deep. Pictures of how we would like life to be. Or perhaps some picture that our parents have painted for us of the good life…

2 Luke 18:1-8
“Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” For how many of us, was that the first prayer we were asked to memorize? Or did you rewrite it for your children as I did for my daughter?…

2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10
There’s a great tendency to think of faith as something that I own. “My faith,” you often hear someone say. “The way I believe.” For faith is some felt experience of being right with God, is another interpretation. Or of God moving in knowable ways in my life. If I perceive it, I have faith. If I do not, then I am short on faith…

Luke 14:1, 7-14
Growing up we all had assigned places at our table, all six of us. My mom and dad were at opposite ends of the table, my sister and I were on either side of my mom, and my two brothers were on either side of my dad. Meals always began with grace. But my father was the enforcer of manners which were to be taught to us in our childhood as we sat at table…

Psalm 71:1-6, Luke 13:10-17
I’m going to speculate that since we are here, we have some sense of Sabbath. Sabbath is a time and a place where we intentionally rest ourselves in God. We enter into the heart, mind of God as best we can discern it for a period. We do it by opening scripture, by singing praises, by joining in prayers, by letting the Sacrament work itself into our being…