Acts 11:1-18; John 13:31-35
“Where I am going, you cannot come.” Last summer, the community theater called On the Isle on Nantucket invited us to a wonderful story called The Trip to Bountiful . . . You may know the story. It’s a story about the longing for home; it is about our yearning for a place of comfort and security and stability, a place of deep acceptance and unconditional love, a place where we can be ourselves, a place and a people that feed our souls . . .
Acts 9:36-43; John 10:22-30
“I can’t take it. I just can’t take it.” Ever use that phrase? I think most of us, at some point in our life, get to that point where we say “I just can’t take it.” I want to reflect on that phrase this morning. It’s probably one of the most honest things that we say, because what we’re saying is, “I can’t take it.” But what I think the challenge is… While we can’t take it, the only thing we can do is give ourselves to it. And that’s the hard part.
John 21:1-19
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Now, anyone who’s been around children knows that you sometimes have to repeat yourself… But it’s not just kids. I have events on my to-do list, projects to be finished, calls to be made, and emails to be responded to that have been on my list for more than one day. So saying “I love you” almost always has to be repeated. It’s never enough to hear it just once, to say it just once… Love bears repeating.
John 20:19-31
The passage of House Bill 2 recently and the social debate that’s gone on after it got me to thinking a lot this week… about how much difference there is between law and Gospel. They are never the same thing. The issues of race and forgiveness and care seldom show up in the laws that grab our attention — that is so core to the Gospel. It got me to thinking about what it means to be left out, what it means to be overlooked and not understood.
John 20:1-18
Happy Easter! Often times when we think of Easter, we think of Easter as an event — an event that happened: Jesus the Christ raised from the dead. But if we look closely at the scriptures and all the Gospel stories that tell of the resurrection, I’d suggest it’s not so much an event that’s being described as much as an experience: the experience of the risen Christ.
John 20:1-18
Happy Easter! [Father George enters dressed in a hard hat and tool belt.] How many children are here? If you’re honest, we’re all children at heart… I want to talk to you about something today, particularly to the children: how did people know that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead?
Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12
Perseveration is a brain dysfunction. It shows itself by someone acting in a way over and over again, despite the fact that the action may be meaningless or cause harm or even death… Despite the fact that it’s from a medical model, you can stretch this definition to include behaviors of ours that are destructive and yet continue.
John 18:1-19:42
One of the best-known hymns of the American South is a hymn for Good Friday, and it begins with both a declaration and a question:
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.
This and most of our Good Friday hymns call the crucifixion of Christ both a dreadful curse and an act of unfathomable generosity and love…
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Memory is a terrible and a wonderful thing. As we focus on the bombings in Belgium just now, there is memory, not just of those whose lives were lost or who are scarred by the events there, but here too. Many of us may well journey back to 9/11, those we knew, how we felt. The hurt or the anger that lingers in our bones at not feeling safe anymore, not feeling always safe. And voices fill the airwaves, “Who do we blame? Who are we to watch?”…
Palm Sunday, Luke 22:14-23:56
I want to share a few thoughts on this Palm Sunday and this week we’re entering into that we call holy…