July 28, 2024 - The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

God of beauty and love, help us to grow further into your image in which we are made. Amen.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? For a lot of reasons, many people have a complicated relationship with the image they see in the mirror. As we heard in our Collect, the opening prayer for the week, we ask for God to help us to “pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.” It’s a prayer that asks God to help us focus on the things that matter most and let go of the things that aren’t so important. And so when you look in the mirror, there are two ways to see your reflection.

July 21, 2024 - The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Loving God, help us to trust in you more than we trust in ourselves. Amen.

            When it comes to most of life, if we’re honest, we have no idea what we’re doing. Almost twelve years ago, Tyler and I brought home a beautiful and wonderful daughter from the hospital, but she didn’t come with a manual, nor did her sister. As parents, we do our best, but there’s no way to know if what we’re doing is the right course of action. I was recently talking with someone who is struggling with a child in their early 20s in what we might call a “failure to launch” scenario. What’s the right response to motivate this young adult to get out of bed and off the video games – tough love or patience while they figure it out on their own? We pray, we get advice, we read books, but at the end of the day, we don’t know what we’re doing.

July 7, 2024 - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Help us to trust and live as if your grace is sufficient for us, O Lord. Amen.

            I’m sure many of you remember the scene on January 6^th at the US Capitol building. A preacher stood in the shadow of the dome and prayed that America might become “one nation under God.” Christian hymns were sung, supposedly in a country whose Constitution forbids the establishment of a national religion, and prayers were offered which suggested that those on the other side had corrupted our nation. Only the event that I’m describing didn’t happen in 2021; I’m talking about the events of January 6, 2022, when mostly Democrats gathered to claim the moral high ground and the preacher they chose to offer assuring words of blessing on their political correctness was none other than our own Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry. Separated by one year, both January 6^th gatherings at the Capitol show us the problems of Christian Nationalism.