If you are like me, you’ve spent part of this week puzzled by violence. After watching nature do so much violence, first by the fires in the west and then by the hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and many of the Caribbean islands and in the Dominion of Puerto Rico, many of us began to feel emotionally exhausted. … Then the shootings in Vegas happened…. (Matthew 21:33-46)
I heard a story recently about a taxi driver, a Somalian immigrant, riding around New York in his cab. He had one cassette with him, in the old tape deck of the cab. For those of you on the younger side, cassettes are the things where music was stored, and yu put them in a tape deck. And in that tape was his wife’s voice. She is a singer, still back in his home country. (Philippians 2:1-13)
I doubt that there’s anybody here in this room who, after hearing that parable (Matthew 20:1-16), doesn’t say, “what?” That does not make sense. It doesn’t seem fair. This idea that a landowner hires people at daybreak, another group at 9:00, another group at 3:00, another group at 5:00, and interestingly, he pays the five o’clock people first….
As far as White House press secretaries go, I have, for some time now, had a clear favorite. Her name is Claudia Jean Cregg (C.J. Cregg) played by Allison Janney in the TV series, The West Wing. … It’s surprising when viewers find out, a few seasons in, that C.J. as done something she feels deeply ashamed of. (Matthew 18:21-35)
Context is everything. When we try to understand something, it’s so important to know the context. I want to share some thoughts this morning on this reading, that letter that Paul wrote to the Romans and allow that to engage us in our lives at St. Paul’s. (Romans 13:8-14)
… Vincent Donovan, who was a missionary to the Masai people in Tanzania many years ago, … was teaching the people there about the seven sacraments of the church, and described a sacrament as a physical encounter or event in which you experience the transcendent or grace or the holy… (Exodus 3:1-15)
… There was a saying that Robert F. Kennedy was known for, actually a line from George Bernard Shaw, “Some men see things as they are and say, Why? I dream things that never were, and say, Why not?”
(Matthew 16:13-20)
If you ever walk around the old city in Jerusalem, you’ll find a lot of commemorative plaques all over the place. Now it is primarily a Jewish and Muslim city, but you’ll still find markers of various Christian sites and points of pilgrimage, places that people have visited again and again to remember and walk in the footsteps of Jesus…. (Matthew 15: 10-28)
Today’s gospel reading has been resonating around in my head for several weeks. Peter stepping out of the boat to walk to Jesus is probably one of the best known stories. You all have probably heard it preached many times over the years. So my dilemma was to find a new way of presenting it. (Matthew 14:22-33)
Today is a feast day in the church, the Feast of the Transfiguration. It always falls on August sixth. And whether August sixth is a Sunday or a Wednesday, it’s the Feast of the Transfiguration. We have the white vestments and the white hangings to remind us of this great feast. The Transfiguration is decribed to us in the Gospel reading for today, (Luke 9:28-36).