Gospel of Mark
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What It Takes To Be Family
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6 min read
a Homily for Proper 5B Text: Mark 3:20-35 Jesus is surrounded. He’s trapped. No way out. This morning’s story opens with a claustrophobic scene. This enormous crowd that has been following Jesus is getting out of hand. He has already feared getting trampled. Now they are closing He and his disciples in. They can’t go…
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What the Crowd Tells Us
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1 min read
In Sunday’s gospel (Mark 3:20-35), we get several different ways of addressing what Jesus means by family. In this video, I give my pitch for the crowd.
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It’s All About Winning
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5 min read
a Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent, B Text: Mark 8:31-38 This is Winning? “Jesus saves.” A pithy and precise statement if ever there were one. Jesus Saves. He does. But how? From what? It is a statement too simple to be accurate. Jesus is Messiah and Liberator, Conqueror and King. But every image…
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Inside the Cacophony
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6 min read
a Homily for the Last Sunday after Epiphany, B Text:Mark 9:2-9 I walked into my poetry class completely unprepared for what was about to happen. This was years ago, back when I dreamed of becoming a writer, a playwright or poet, actually. Or at the very least the teacher of writers. It was our second…
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Destination Unknown
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3 min read
Text: Mark 1:29-39 Distractions This gospel is like life: it has a lot of distractions. There are lots of details we could run down; tangents we could explore: These new disciples, their mom and her mysterious ailment, the demon possession. This gospel, on the other hand, is actually about the gospel. It is about moving, finding,…
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It’s That Time of Year…For Repentance?
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1 min read
Why do you hate Advent? Seriously. What did it ever do to you? It never tried to steal your lunch money. It never made up rumors about you and spread them around school. So what gives? Why are you talking about a holiday that isn’t even here while ignoring the season that is? It isn’t…