September 15, 2019 - Proper 19C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the God who finds the lost. Amen.

            “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” In our modern context, it might seem like the opposite of that is true. Many people find faith to be antiquated superstitions and younger generations aren’t walking away from religion as much as they’re not even engaging with it in the first place. Atheism is no longer a concept, it is the fastest-growing religion in America. So for much of society, they look at the church and they say “How foolish and silly that all is.”

March 15, 2015 - Lent 4B

Lectionary Readings

Note: The substitute first reading was 2 Samuel 7:1-14 and the Gospel text was expanded to John 3:1-21.

In the name of God, who creates, redeems, and sustains. Amen.

            When you study a foreign language, one of the exercises that you often do is conjugating verbs- I run, you run, she runs. But when you do this, sometimes you’ll run into verb forms that you can’t really think of a situation in which you’d need to use it, such as the first person perfect tense of “to die”- I have died. Another conjugation that you’ll probably never hear is the first person future of “to be born”- I will be born. And yet, Jesus says “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” So that we’re all on the same page, the Greek of that sentence can be translated either as “being born from above” or “being born again.” But either way, it seems that Jesus might indeed have a use for that verbal form- I will be born.