August 28, 2022 - The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

O God of grace and glory, thank you for inviting us to eat at your table ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Ambition used to be a vice. Shakespeare wrote of the “canker of ambitious thoughts” and for most of history, ambition was seen as perhaps the greatest vice. The saying was “Fling away ambition: by that sin the angels fell.” St. Augustine wrote of ambition as a “pernicious sin,” saying that ambition is the primary obstacle in the way of Christian faithfulness. Today, we tell people to “reach for the stars” and that “you can do anything that you set your mind to,” which is an absolute lie. We speak of ambition not as a vice, but a virtue – an up-and-coming person is described as “ambitious.” Just this week, Meghan Markle debuted a podcast and the first episode is called “The Misconception of Ambition.” She says she had always thought of ambition as a good thing until meeting the Royal Family and was chided for it. Markle picked up the lesson that we teach in our society – you deserve the best and the only thing holding you back is how bold and ambitious you are.

August 21, 2022 - The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Loving God, set us free from all that holds us back from finding our rest in you ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            One of the best feelings in the world, at least as I’ve experienced it, is actually the lack of feeling. When you’ve been in pain and the pain goes away, it’s one of most wonderful feelings there is. Sometimes it’s a sunburn, sometimes a headache, sometimes a pulled muscle, sometimes the relief doesn’t come until after surgery to fix a knee, shoulder, or back, but there’s simply nothing like that feeling of relief. That release from pain, which might also call liberation or salvation, is what God intends for us all and one of the ways that God seeks to grant us this relief is through the Sabbath.

August 14, 2022 - The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Gracious God, help us to find the fullness of joy in following you ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            At St. Luke’s, we have an identity statement. I’ve never been much of a fan of mission statements because organizations invest a lot of time and money into creating one, and then everyone promptly forgets about it and gets back to business as usual. Furthermore, the mission statement of a Church is really quite simple: to do whatever it is that the Holy Spirit tells us to do. But an identity statement is different as it helps us to remember not what we are supposed to do, but rather who we are. And the difference between those two is significant.

August 7, 2022 - The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

O Lord, help us to worship you in Spirit and Truth ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Ritual without justice is heresy. This is the message of the prophet Isaiah and one that the Church must always bear in mind. So often we think that religion is about what we think of God. But we have little evidence in Scripture or Tradition to suggest that God is concerned more about what we say in the Creed than how we treat our neighbors. When the people of God get into trouble it is by neglecting to do justice. To be clear, worship is always the foundation. There’s a reason why the Ten Commandments begin with prohibitions against serving false gods or using God’s name inappropriately. Worship is at the very heart of what it means to be God’s people. But what good is a heart without the rest of the body? This is what Isaiah and the prophets of God challenge us to see – faith isn’t simply about rituals, it is about justice. And if we practice some perversion of the faith without justice, well, that’s heresy.

July 31, 2022 - The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

O Lord, help us to know that our lives are safe in you ✠ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            We’ve all heard the phrase “you are what you eat.” And there’s a lot of truth to that idea – what we consume makes us who we are. This is true not only of foods but any sort of content that we take it.  If we listen to a lot of partisan news, we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves with stronger than average political opinions. If we read a lot of poetry, our speech might be a bit more lyrical. Studies have shown that children who watch violence in cartoons are then more violent in their interactions with others. We become what we consume.

July 24, 2022 - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

Lord, let us be so bold as to pray as you have taught us ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            If there has ever been a set of words spoken more often than the Lord’s Prayer, I’d be surprised. For 2,000 years, Christians have been praying these words, often multiple times a day. And there’s a deep beauty to this – these words are prayed at weddings, gravesides, battlefields, hospital rooms, chapels, and living rooms. I have prayed these words with people as they died, I have prayed with people who know these words even when, because of dementia, they do not know who they are, I have prayed these words with children as they are just learning about the wonderful and amazing grace of God. This is the richness of such a familiar prayer. The other side of familiarity though is that, because we know this prayer so well, we can say these words while on auto-pilot. So it is always good when we have a chance to reflect on and rejoice in these words that our Savior Christ has taught us.

July 17, 2022 - The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings

O God, help us to focus on the one thing that we have need of ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            A quick Google search will tell you that “time management” is in high demand. We can watch videos, attend seminars, and read books that all promise to teach us how to better manage our time so that we can be more successful, or whatever the supposed goal of having our time better managed is. We give school children and young adults all sorts of lessons about how to best structure the day to maximize productivity and minimize stress. Judging by the overall feel of our culture right now, I’m not so sure it’s working. We’re just more stressed about how productive we are, or are not. Now, to be clear, I say all of this as probably the most neurotically organized person here, so it’s not that I don’t value time management, it’s just I’m not convinced when we hear Jesus say that “There is need of only one thing” that he is referring to productivity, success, or returns on investments.