-
·
First, Love
How Jesus’s subversive call to love continues to challenge us a Homily for Proper 25A | Text: Matthew 22:34-46 Commander Love Love GOD. Love neighbor. This is the basis for all of our teaching. We can see it, too. When we read those first five books of our sacred scripture, those written in Hebrew, we…
-
·
Rejecting the Trap
The dishonesty behind asking compromises any answer Jesus may have to the question a Homily for Proper 24A | Text: Matthew 22:15-22 The Trap This is not a story about taxes. This is a story about a trap that backfires. A trap set to deal with authority. And every time we go near the question of…
-
·
Learning to Feast
The Wedding Banquet, the king’s demands, and a kingdom of opportunity a Homily for Proper 23 A | Text: Matthew 22:1-14 A Strange Wedding There’s a part of this story that Jesus tells the Pharisees that makes sense to us and a part that doesn’t at all. This is the story of a weird kind of…
-
·
Closer to the Kingdom
How the negative helps us find the positive in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants a Homily for Proper 22 A | Text: Matthew 21:33-46 It is a great honor to be here to join you this morning. I am so thankful for the grace and generosity that has been shown to me already. I…
-
·
We Labor Together
Fairness in the Kingdom is not about your wealth, but our health a Homily for Proper 20 A | Text: Matthew 20:1-16 GOD’s way doesn’t seem fair It seems fitting that we would spend my last few weeks here dealing with what holy community looks like to Jesus. It is almost as if He’s trying to tell us something. I…
-
·
Forgiving GOD
how our understanding of forgiveness is too small a Homily for Proper 19A | Text: Matthew 18:21-35 The volume of forgiveness When Peter asks about forgiveness, about the volume of forgiveness, it triggers a cascade of central teachings to our faith. Teachings that are the foundation of everything. On the surface, it is a simple enough…
-
·
Confronting Death
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…