Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. My first brush with Ash Wednesday came ages ago when I was at Purdue University. One day a friend of mine appeared with a very visible gray mark on his forehead, and I called it to his attention, thinking it should be removed. He informed […]
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This terrible vulnerability
On the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the church typically hears scriptures and sermons about the Transfiguration, that occasion when Peter, James, and John go up on a mountain with Jesus and some rather strange events occur. However, the CHMF worship calendar—in either a mistaken or inspired move—scheduled the readings for today to be those for […]
Absurd, ridiculous, miraculous signs
I realize that I am dating myself with the description, but I am old enough to remember spinning my favorite album without a trace of irony, and with no notions of superior sound quality. I had an early 80s standard issue Fisher Price record player, about the size and shape of a small briefcase, a […]
like a dove
Four years ago I was in a bad car accident. My body hurt all the time, for months. Muscle spasms, throbbing pain everywhere. I couldn’t think of anything but the pain. I remember one Sunday, here at church, I asked for prayer, because I was overwhelmed, and after we all closed our eyes, and as […]
He grew
Advent builds with expectation—and after four weeks of Advent, four weeks of anticipation, four weeks of waiting, there’s a celebration, the celebration of the birth date of Jesus, the excitement of Christmas day. The incarnation is special. There’s so much there to capture our imagination, so much mystery and beauty there, when God becomes human, […]
The bread of tears
Fourth Sunday of Advent A verse from our Psalm for today, this fourth Sunday of Advent: “You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure” (Ps 80:5). Tears flow like a stream through the pages of our Scriptures, sometimes turning into a river in books like […]
Unconventional Homemaking
This is my first advent preaching and I really wanted to talk about Mary, about how beautiful she is and how she’s joyfully, but humbly carrying God. I was going to make a bunch of poetic comments about the waters of her womb and the waters Isaiah talks about. I wanted desperately to avoid the […]
For you I wait all day long
First Sunday of Advent There’s a book I’ve been reading lately, and I’ve decided that it’s basically an Advent book—a book about Advent, because it’s all about waiting. That’s actually the title: Waiting. It’s about some toys—these little creatures here on the windowsill—who do a lot of waiting. [Several excerpts from the book] “They saw […]
Warmth of the saints
All Saints Sunday Jesus gets there too late. He gets to Lazarus too late. “Lord,” Mary says—this is Lazarus’s sister Mary—she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). If only Jesus got there in time, a week earlier, then he would have been able to lay his […]
What does love remember?
At the beginning of the story, the story of Job, at the beginning of the book, Job has it all—wealth, possessions, family, perfect health. Then it’s all take from him. All of it. Oxen and donkeys, sheep and camels, sons and daughters, and he’s afflicted with sores, sores all over his body, and he sits […]
Fire and flame are your ministers
I’m sitting there, trying to write this sermon, getting some decent thoughts on the page, typing away, me and my computer, along with everyone else and their computers, their books, their lattes—a bright day, a flood of sunshine cooled by a fall breeze. Then a song comes on, one of those songs that dazes you, […]
If only
Rabbi Akiva said: “Had the Torah not been given, the Song of Songs would have sufficed to guide the world” (quoted in Gillian Rose, Paradiso, 15). The Song of Songs to guide the world, to guide us in this world. No need for the Torah; no need for the Law—the loves songs of Solomon would […]
on divorce
Bring his head on a plate, sighed King Herod. And moments later, John the Baptist was beheaded, to please the whim of a dancing girl, to appease the vengeful heart of Herod’s second wife, who hated John for calling out Herod on his divorce and remarriage to Herodias. It may be that the Pharisees who […]
If the Lord is for us
If the Lord had not been for us –let Israel repeat it— If the Lord had not been for us when there arose against us: people, then alive they would have swallowed us in their burning rage against us. Then the waters would have engulfed us, a torrent sweeping over us, body and soul, then […]
Praise Her at the City Gates
Over the last ten years or so I’ve been unlearning the interpretation of Proverbs 31 that I grew up with, a reading that governed much of my adolescence and young adult life, as it does for so many girls in traditions that are concerned with raising godly women, ushering them into carefully defined and controlled […]
We, too, dislike it
A painting, titled, The Descent from the Cross, an oil painting on oak paneling, a famous work of fifteenth-century religious art — roughly 7 feet by 8 ½ feet — depicts the drama Jesus foretells in our gospel text.[1] You see the cross, the wood that once suspended Jesus’ body in the air, where his dying […]
Precious and lovely
What is this life for? What’s your life for? [personal story about a friend diagnosed with cancer] So I’ve been thinking about what life is for, this precious life: so brief and so breakable. These bodies, these friendships, these jobs, this family, all of it our lives—we have these fragile lives, and they crumble, never […]
Are you on defense or offense?
Opening prayer. Lord, our God, grant us enough wisdom to lead lives worthy of your calling, and enough humility to realize that your perfect way is higher than we can attain. Amen. In the Revised Common Lectionary this is New Testament metaphor Sunday; it’s not stated, but it is abundantly illustrated. I counted at least […]
Love, in crumbs and fragments
There’s a passage in a novel that I think about when I preach these days. It’s from Marilynne Robinson’s book, Lila. The main character says to the preacher, she says: “What do you ever tell people in a sermon except that things that happen mean something? Some man dies somewhere a long time ago and […]
A Kingdom’s Agony
Last night at our house we watched The Lion King. It is the story of Simba, a little lion cub who is heir to the throne as king of the jungle at Pride Rock. The story tells how he grows into, comes to terms with, and eventually receives his kingdom. It is full of all […]
That we may see and believe
In our story from John’s Gospel, the people find Jesus in Capernaum, and they’re trying to figure out what this Jesus is all about—what it would mean to believe in him, and what it would mean to follow him. So they ask Jesus, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we […]
A dwelling place
It hasn’t been easy for David since he was chosen to rule Israel – picked the last of his brothers, sent out to a giant with a pocket of stones, made to play the harp to appease a demon, his death plotted by the king. I imagine he is weary from the unpredictability that has […]
Shake the Dust Off
I don’t have an mp3 player in my car, and frankly, I’m past the stage of putting music on a disc only to have it get all scratched up. So, I have become increasingly comfortable belting out pop songs, even if it draws stares. I am to an extent, beholden to the radio channels, to […]
Teacher, do you not care?
Friday morning I saw a man, probably in his 40s, walking slowly up Morehead Avenue, just around the corner from my house. He was walking with his hands stretched out, out from his sides, making his body into a cross. I stopped and watched him for a while, I watched him walk like that until […]