Javier reflects on John 17:6-19. “Years ago, during my first years of seminary, I took my first class in Greek, one of the languages you need to study in order to read ancient manuscripts of scripture. And it was my first fall in North Carolina, which felt an awful lot like summer in Seattle, so the idea of climbing down to a basement classroom to rehearse strange words and grammar and verb conjugations wasn’t exactly ideal.”
The Rev. George Adamik reflects on a trip to the Jersey Shore, our relationships with one another, and the community of the early church (Acts 10:44-48, John 15:9-17).
The Rev. Carr Holland reflects on John 15:1-8 and his own childhood in a segregated society: “When children ask their little questions of life and share their observations of life, they are in their own way saying ‘Help me find my root. Are these things I notice good? Do they give me life? Do they come from God or from some other place?'”
The Rev. Candy Snively shares a personal story about a remarkable act of love: “Laying down our lives isn’t so much about dying for someone else as it is living for someone else, putting their needs ahead of our own as an act of love. And that kind of act of love is the basis for a little story I’d like to tell you about.” (Today’s Gospel reading: John 10:11-18)
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista offers three suggestions for a more peaceful common life (Luke 24:36b-48): “We all bear wounds, proclaiming a peace that we don’t always feel. So what might this peace mean for us today? I’d like to offer a few suggestions… 1) turn off your phone every once in a while, 2) go deeper into your own spiritual life, and 3) go out proclaiming that peace into a world that needs to hear it. It sounds so simple, but it maybe some of the most challenging work we could ever do.”
The Rev. George Adamik reflects on John 20:19-31, doubting Thomas, and a distressing moment from his daughter’s orchestra class.
On Easter, the Rev. George Adamik reflects on John 20:1-18: “The message of the Resurrection is Christ revealing to us the life that we’re called to live, the life we’re called to share, and he models for us the need to reach out to the suffering and the oppressed to bring about wholeness and healing in a broken world.”
At the Great Vigil of Easter, the Rev. Carr Holland: “To get Easter, to receive Easter in its depth, you have to become familiar with apparent failure.”
The Rev. Katie Gillett reflects on our encounters with silence in a homily on Good Friday (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, John 18:1-19:42).
On Maundy Thursday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on John 13:1-17, 31b-35: “This moment feels like the eye of the storm. Jesus, the great teacher and wonderworker, stops for just a moment before the culminating act of his earthly ministry and simply shares a meal with his closest friends.”