Lent
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In Two Worlds
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5 min read
a Homily for the First Sunday After Pentecost, year B Text: John 3:1-17 click here for the audio seeing with different eyes The most important verse in this morning’s pericope is not John 3:16, but 3:8. Here’s how we get there. As you may have noted, we covered this part of Scripture back in Lent.…
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The Daywalkers
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6 min read
a Sermon for Lent 4B Text: John 3:14-21 this is loving the world? There are three reactions people have to this part of Scripture: [from least likely to most likely] 3) Not this one again! 2) Oh! That’s what John 3:16 says! 1) Huh? The third chapter of John begins this way: Now there was…
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No Deal.
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7 min read
a Sermon for Lent 3B Text: John 2:13-22 what’s the problem? Think about all of Jesus’s public ministry for a moment. There were some big spectacles like the feeding of the five thousand. There were also public condemnations, particularly of the Jewish leadership. But this story is unique. It is bold and unsettling. It is…
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Our Marks, Like Dust
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3 min read
a Sermon for Ash Wednesday, B Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 We’re trained from an early age to hate red ink. Our tests and composition papers were often so riddled with red, contrasting starkly with our own black or blue markings on the white piece of paper. Each of our teachers counted up those red marks—with…
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To Bless or Not To Bless
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3 min read
That is the question I have for Monday. For the liturgical snobs out there, I know that it is Lent and we aren’t encouraged by Michno to bless in Lent, but to recite a “prayer over the people,” as was the most ancient custom of what would become the blessing much later. It is a…
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Lent is about trust
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1 min read
In the first Sunday of Lent, we read about the Temptation of Jesus. But is Jesus really tempted? Or is there something else going on? Who really needs to worry about temptation? And what is Lent really about? If you were at St. Paul’s on Sunday, you may already know, but the rest of us…