Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

  • Jesus’s turn toward Jerusalem, following where we don’t want to go, and facing our own fears a Homily for Proper 17 A  |  Text: Matthew 16:21-28   Fearing Responsibility We are in the middle of a conversation. We always are. The passages of our lives are always small segments of a much longer story. A common place…

  • The body of Michael Brown lay in the street for over four hours. Nearly every conversation I have had or story I’ve consumed about Michael Brown has focused on the circumstances or the politics surrounding his death. We have focused on what led up to the shooting, about the character, the police, the press, the…

  • confidentiality (countable and uncountable, plural confidentialities) 1. (uncountable) The property of being confidential. 2. (countable) Something told in confidence; a secret. As a priest, I get confidentiality. I respect not only those things told to me in confidence, but the person doing the telling. I understand the issues and the fear and how unconfident a person…

  • When the Pharisees enter the story, I see the religious establishment. They are the truth police, arresting those who compromise their view of the world. You are doing what we tell you not to do. Seeing them, I see the church today. In every skeptical comment the Pharisees make and every philosophical trap they try…

  • rethinking Jesus’s vision of church, Peter, and the love of GOD We mistake the naming of Peter as reflective of his character, rather than His. a Homily for Proper 16 A  |  Text: Matthew 16:13-20     desiring proof Again the Pharisees. Those ancient ideological evangelicals–obsessed with rule-following–return. This time they’ve brought back-up: the Sadducees. Not…

  • You might be under the impression that there is some kind of war on faith in our country. From the talk of many Christians, one could be easily confused by the annual declaration of a War on Christmas and the recent cries for religious liberty from those seeking to diminish ours. You may think there is some…