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A Storm of Ashes
Driving home from our pancake dinner last night, having prepared the materials for our Ashes to Go and some Ash Wednesday goodies (which is in the back, please pick one up on the way out), the darkness mixed with the dripping from the sky. The cracks of thunder and streaks so sudden and arresting, any…
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Becoming Holy
There’s a weirdness on that mountain. If we’ve learned anything from our scripture, it might be to not go up mountains. Don’t seek those mountaintop experiences. Don’t do it. Weird stuff happens there. There: anything. Bushes burn, laws given, messiah’s transfigured, and voices come from nowhere to tell you stuff. Bright lights change our appearances…
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Choose to Love
Or How to Build the Blessed Community This is an honest question. How many times have we heard a Christian, a follower of Christ, a disciple of Jesus say “an eye for an eye”? A lot, right? These are among the least surprising words to come out of Jesus’s mouth or the mouths of any…
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Reconsider
For the last month or so we’ve been talking about what goes into a new beginning. With baptism, we’re invited to begin again. And with it, we’re invited into following Christ, face adversity, respond, and claim our purpose. Today, we focus on one of the least appreciated parts of our journey. Where we wrestle with…
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On Purpose
Drive What drives you? What gets you out of bed in the morning and puts one foot in front of the other, stumbling to the coffee pot? You get up and you move. I wake up and I drink water and shower and dress and get my kids to school. I don’t want them to…
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Respond – The Beatitudes bless us in seeing
I don’t know what the disciples expected when they followed Jesus up the mountain. Maybe a great wisdom. They hadn’t been following him long. They visited a few cities in the region. So they were just getting to know the man. And he goes up the mountain. They follow. And he unveils the very dream…
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Adversity and the Divine Liberator
There’s a seam in our story this morning. One in which, if you’ve been following along, might cause some difficulty. It’s a small thing, really. Last week, we meet Andrew and another in the gospel we call John as disciples of John the Baptist. This week, in Matthew they’re fishermen. A small matter, but significant.…
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The Invitation
There’s a part in every story when the hero is invited to do something ridiculous. Something beyond his comprehension or her ability to see. It’s usually something that, if they knew how it all would play out, they’d probably just say, “You know what? I think I’ll pass.” 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany | John…