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Telling Secrets: “…Another World Is Possible.”
Elizabeth Kaeton preached the quintessential Advent 4 sermon–about Occupy Wall Street. Amazing! This has me moved to see a simple idea. Head on over, read it, and then reflect over that picture of Bishop Packard for a moment. When you are done, come back and ask yourself the following question: What if, in the midst…
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Don’t Be Afraid. I Really Do Mean It!
Text: Luke 1:26-38 In this morning’s gospel, we have what should seem absolutely crazy. It doesn’t for two reasons: 1) its very familiar and 2) the virgin birth has been an ideological litmus test for fundamentalists as something to intellectually believe with deep-rooted conviction. Rather than treating this like we do the rest of the…
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We Begin At the End
Happy New Year, everybody! This is, of course, the Christian New Year. It looks and feels a little different than the day we associate with New Year’s. Penitential purple? Ugh. So we begin Advent, and the new year, with Jesus telling his disciples about the end of things. We begin at the end. Today, we aren’t…
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From Division, Unity (full sermon)
a Sermon for Proper 29A Text: Matthew 25:31-46 Now what was that about the goats? I saw a comment online a week or so ago about these gospel readings we’ve had that said something to this effect: What horrible readings for stewardship season! This morning’s gospel, like the last few weeks have been a pretty…
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From Division, Unity
The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Matthew 25:31-46 We all know the parable about the sheep and the goats. The easy reading of this parable is that it has to do with division—sheep/goats, left/right—and eschatology—how time is completed/the end times. It clearly looks like that. But I don’t buy it. And neither should you. The context…
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The Bridegroom’s a Jerk; I Sure Hope God Isn’t
In this parable, (Matthew 25:1-13) with bridesmaids, waiting for the bridegroom, the easy reading is wrong. It doesn’t work. If we see this as being about…The Second Coming or Heaven after death or the perfect example of Christian community… Then God is an idiot. See, the easy reading makes us think two things: We need to prepare for…
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Renegades of Funk (Monday Mixtape)
Now renegades are the people with their own philosophies They change the course of history Everyday people like you and me We’re the renegades we’re the people With our own philosophies We change the course of history Everyday people like you and me As I said in my homily yesterday, the stuff that got Jesus…
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Whose son is he?
Proper 25A Matthew 22:34-46 In this corna! Weighing in at a paltry 135 pounds of emaciated flesh, Jesus of Nazareth! And in this corna! Weighing a combined 1,600 portly pounds, the Pharisees! [Booooo!] For the last few weeks, we’ve been dealing with this sequence in Jerusalem in which Jesus is tangling with the Jewish leadership.…