“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” When I hear these words every Ash Wednesday I think about mortality and death. I think about my own death. I think about the death of those I love. And I feel more than a little uncomfortable. I am probably not alone among humans […]
Maundy Thursday. The evening when we are reminded of the “Great Mandate” the “Great Commandment,” the “New Commandment.” “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love […]
The festival of Passover was a threat to the Roman authorities of Jesus’ day. After all, this was the week when the Jewish people remembered their liberation by God with feasting and with storytelling. It was the week when the Jewish people celebrated a God who led them out of slavery and bondage. It is […]
I want to begin by taking a step back and putting our Gospel story for today, Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet with nard, into larger context. In the Gospel of John, we have seen Jesus call his disciples, begin his ministry by turning water into wine, clear the temple of the money changers, and talk […]
I love Jesus’ parables. They are so simple and yet so complex. I especially love our parable for today, usually known as the parable of the prodigal son. No matter how often I read it or hear it read it has something new to say to me. At this point in my life, as a […]
Most of the time I am very happy that we are a lectionary-based church. This means that the scripture we read on Sundays comes from a three-year schedule of assigned readings. I don’t pick the readings for a given Sunday. They are picked for us by the people who created the lectionary. The benefit of […]
When I was serving a church in Virginia, a member of my congregation shared with me her struggles with mental illness. She had been diagnosed at the age of 22 with bipolar disorder. She was 35 at the time I met and got to know her. You would never have known if you had met […]
Human beings are meaning makers. With our big and complex brains, we are able to take in and process a lot of information. We are also able to think about the information we take into our brains in an abstract way. It is what makes us distinct from other creatures. Take my cat for example. […]
I recently came across some sermon notes for Ash Wednesday that I made 15 years ago. My notes were all about Ash Wednesday reminding us of our mortality. I was struck by how much sense those notes made then, but don’t make now. I was amazed by how much our world has changed in just […]