June 28, 2015 - Proper 8B

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            I can’t imagine. Can you imagine it? We use those phrases when we encounter something that stops us in our tracks, whether it is good or bad. Sometimes when we rhetorically ask “can you imagine?” it is because in our horror and disbelief we, ourselves, cannot actually imagine it. We hear stories of the violent atrocities committed by ISIS and we shake our heads, saying “can you imagine that?” That reality simply does not fit into our frame of reference. But sometimes we lack this imagination in the positive sense of the phrase. “She donated a kidney to a complete stranger,” or we see a beautiful painting and say I can’t imagine. Sometimes we observe something that seems to be larger than life, full of more beauty or compassion than we thought was possible. When we hear this reading from Mark, a fitting response very well might be “I can’t imagine.”

June 21, 2015 - Proper 7B

Lectionary Readings

Almighty God, may you guide us to seek the Truth: come whence it may, cost what it will, lead where it might. Amen.

             “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” If we read Mark chronologically, then by the time this storm arises on the sea of Galilee, the disciples have already been called by Jesus, have witnessed him heal people, and have heard his first parables. Perhaps the disciples were beginning to put together that there is something different about Jesus. That night on the waters, a violent storm popped up and Jesus calms the wind and the waves. And so they ask the question that has been asked, fought over, and prayed over for thousands of years- “who, then, is this?”