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Living in the midst of death
Jesus’s vine image and the challenge of abiding in him Easter 5B | John 15:1-8 A Green Thumb My Mom is a gardener. When we moved up to Alpena from southeast of Detroit, we were moving into a rectory: a two-story beauty with a side porch and slightly sloping lawn. Big, mature trees next…
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How to Really Celebrate Valentine’s Day
I used to hate Valentine’s Day. It’s a Hallmark holiday I’d say. It’s an excuse to buy somebody more stuff I’d say. It’s about making the women in our lives happy I’d say. I was much more cynical then. At its root, the problem I had with the way we celebrate Valentine’s Day is that it…
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Love and Sacrifice
a Homily for Easter 6B Text: John 15:9-17 Last week’s Gospel pericope ended with verses 7 and 8 which read: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and…
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Being Where GOD Will Be
That is our certainty. It is found being where GOD is. Where GOD says GOD will be. It isn’t found in our stated beliefs or creeds or political affiliation or what our Sunday School teachers taught us about GOD: it is about how we treat the powerless and the defenseless.
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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…
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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…
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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…