June 26, 2016 - Proper 8C

Lectionary Readings

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

            Can you recall to mind a time where you were falling in love? And I’m not talking about the love that you might have for a pet, child, or material thing, but specifically about romantic love. Do you remember those butterflies that you’d get in your stomach as you got ready to see that person? The way your heart danced when you would see them? Can you imagine what the world might be like if there was more of that feeling of love in it? If our souls were stirred up like that not only when we are falling in love, but every time we encountered another person?

June 5, 2016 - Proper 5C

Lectionary Readings

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

            When you’re going through the ordination process, one aspect of the formation is to work as a chaplain intern. So the summer after my first year of seminary, I worked at Alamance Regional Hospital in Burlington. Part of the work was to occasionally stay over-night at the hospital, being on-call for any pastoral emergencies. I’ll never forget the first time that pager went off in the middle of the night, I scrambled to look presentable and rushed down to the ER. There, I watched a man in his early 60s come in on a stretcher. He wasn’t breathing, and the doctors and nurses did everything that they could to revive him, but it was too late. In a hospital, death is a medical diagnosis before it is a pastoral situation, so the doctor has to be the one deliver the bad news to the family in a small waiting. In most situations, including this one, as soon as the doctor did his job of notifying the family, he’d leave the room and it was then my job to do what I could to comfort the family.

May 29, 2016 - Proper 4C

Lectionary Readings

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

            “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Those words were spoken to the people of Israel by Joshua as they are entering the Promised Land. Will they serve the God of their ancestors who brought them out of Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness, or will they serve the local gods of the region? Will they serve the Lord who demands steadfast fidelity, working for justice, and a humble heart? Or will they serve gods who promise to give them pleasure without commitment and prosperity without justice? I know that most of us haven’t even had the chance to cast a ballot, but we’re already tired of making choices. But today’s readings urge us to choose whom we will serve. What choice will we make?

May 22, 2016 - Trinity C

Lectionary Readings (1 John 4:7-21 substituted as epistle reading)

In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            “All you need is love; love is all you need.” Those words that come from John really are a decent first draft of the essentials of Christian doctrine, they just happened to be written by John Lennon, not the author of today’s epistle from 1 John. There, the text proclaims that “God is love… if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” I know that it seems overly simplistic, but love really is all we need.

May 15, 2016 - Pentecost C

Lectionary Readings

Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten us with thy celestial fire. Amen.

            Have you ever learned about the origin of something that had previously been unknown to you? Perhaps you learned that the cordless handheld vacuum was not invented to make household chores easier, but was made by NASA to extract samples from the moon’s surface. Or you learned that when Caesar used to conquer a people, he would announce his victory with a decree known as an euangelion, a word we today translate as “gospel.” And when we learn more about the origin of these things, they give us a deeper understanding of how they work and function. Pentecost is one of things that has a foundation that is often not known.

May 8, 2016 - Easter 7C

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.

            As Americans, freedom is in our cultural DNA. While freedom is something that most nations value, in the US we place a greater emphasis on it, with mottos such as “live free or die” and “give me liberty or give me death;” and the First Amendment focuses on the freedom of speech, religion, petition, assembly, and the press. But there are really two kinds of freedom, and when we confuse them, we miss the true import of freedom.

May 5, 2016 - Ascension Day

Lectionary Readings

In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.

            Ascension Day is an oft-forgotten day in the Church. I think it’s because the Ascension is a rather difficult event to grasp. For one, it’s essentially a day on which we celebrate being left behind. If your family and friends were waiting at the airport to board the plane on a fantastic vacation, and they boarded the plane while you were in the bathroom and left you behind, I don’t suppose that you’d want to celebrate the occasion. And, in a sense, that’s what Ascension Day is about – Jesus ascending to some sort of paradise where there is no pain or suffering, and we’d very much like accompany him there, but we’ve been left behind.