The Rev. Carr Holland meditates on the Beatitudes (Luke 6:17-26), vulnerability, and living a meaningful life: “At Yale, there is currently a course for which there are only 60 slots annually but about 250 applicants. It came about because of a realization in the divinity school that a key question of liberal arts education was missing: what makes for a meaningful life?”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista discusses Luke 5:1-11, where Simon, James, and John become “fishers of men.”
The Rev. George Adamik reflects on Jesus’s controversial return to his hometown in Luke 4:21-30.
The Rev. Candy Snively discusses Luke 4:14-21, the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, and the relevance of his message today.
The Rev. Carr Holland discusses the Wedding at Cana and grace (John 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11): “I had this image, how some go through life and their days, perceiving they have a pound of sugar or kindness or goodness, some but a cup, and others a teaspoon. And we deal with each other from that perception.”
(Luke 3:15-17, 21-22) A young girl named Joanne got her first job at the tender age of nine. She and her sister cleaned a little Anglican church down the street from their home in England. … She was baptised on July 31, 1976, her eleventh birthday, sprinkled at the font of St. Luke’s Church. She would go on the share her birthday with the main character of a book she would later write. Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, gave birth to the boy who lived, Harry Potter….
On the Feast of the Epiphany (Matthew 2:1-12), the Rev. George Adamik contemplates city skylines and our calling to be “spires of light in the darkness of our world.”
On Christmas Eve, the Rev. George Adamik reflects on Jesus’s birth into poverty, among the homeless, outcasts, the poor, refugees, and migrants.
The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista discusses Luke 1:39-45(46-55) and the power of words: “It is into this world, full of hurtful, painful, broken words, that the Word made flesh decided to enter one fateful day long ago. And it is this world, full of our pain and our loss, that the Word made flesh is preparing to enter even now.”
The Rev. Candy Snively reflects on Luke 3:7-18 and Philippians 4:4-7: “So anyone feeling stressed these days? ‘Tis the season of total busyness when there are just not enough hours in your day to get everything accomplished, and there’s nothing to put you in the Christmas spirit quite like a good lecture from John the Baptist: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ Somehow I don’t think you’d find that sentiment on a Hallmark card. No where does the difference between John the Baptist and Jesus stand out so clearly.”