March 31, 2019 - Lent 4C

Lectionary Readings

O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

            If you were to turn to the Catechism in the back of the Prayer Book, you’d read that the mission of the Church is to “ restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” That’s a pretty tall task – restoring all people to unity with God and with each other. But this audacious mission statement comes not from a grandiose sense of what the Episcopal Church thinks it can accomplish, but rather is grounded in the words of St. Paul. In the second letter to the Corinthians, he writes “God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

March 24, 2019 - Lent 3C

Lectionary Readings

O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

            “Take the shoes off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” God tells Moses that when you come before God, it is a powerful and transformative experience. One of the ways that we come and see the difference Christ makes is through worship, which is all about pointing us in the direction of that difference.

March 17, 2019 - Lent 2C

Lectionary Readings

O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

            What are those events that have made a difference in your life? The birth of a child, the death of a spouse, your parents’ divorce, a heart attack, the day someone took a chance on you and gave you a job, marrying the love of your life – these are all difference-making events, as they not only mark a change of status, but they also fundamentally change how we live and move in the world.

March 10, 2019 - Lent 1C

Lectionary Readings

Grace, mercy, and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Come and See. That’s been a sort of unofficial motto that I’ve been using at St. Luke’s for the past year or so. That phrase is used throughout the Gospel according to John as a way of pointing towards the glory of God made manifest in Jesus. The way we’ve been using it at St. Luke’s is as both an inward summons for us to go deeper into our faith so that we might come and see more fully the grace of God and as an outward invitation to use to bring other people to St. Luke’s so that they might come and see the love of God in the community and worship of this church.

March 6, 2019 - Ash Wednesday

Lectionary Readings; Psalm 51

Grace, mercy, and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            There was an article in The New York Times a few weeks ago that caught my attention. The title is “Raising Children Without the Concept of Sin.” It’s written by a mother who writes, “The notion of sin dominated my girlhood, it was the inflexible yardstick against which I was measured. God was the megaphone bleating in my head: You’re bad, you’re bad, you’re bad.” She goes on to tell how she slowly wandered away from the church and religion altogether. When she became a mother, she resolved to raise her children differently than she was. She concludes by saying, “I had raised my daughter without sin.”

March 3, 2019 - Quinquagesima

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God ☩ who is love. Amen.

            We do like to focus on those big moments, don’t we? You might not watch much football, but you tune into the Super Bowl. You try to ignore politics, but the State of the Union catches your attention. You don’t always make it to church, but you’re sure to be here on Easter Sunday. It’s the mountaintop experiences that grab us and make us pay attention. The Transfiguration of Jesus, which we heard about in Luke this morning, is certainly one of those experiences. And while mountain top experiences can be amazing and insightful, every single mountaintop has a base, a foundation that the entire experience sits upon. While the pinnacle is certainly wonderful, this morning, I want to focus on that foundation of the Transfiguration.