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Sabbath: Holy Saturday
“The Sabbath” Read the Text: Mark 15:42-16:1 OK, I cheated. There is no text for Holy Saturday. It goes from the evening before the Sabbath to the day after. No Sabbath. Writers and theologians have been searching for the missing day for centuries. One of my favorite apocryphal stories comes from Piers Plowman, a medieval poem that…
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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…
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Why I’m Lousy at Vacation
This is what I discovered this summer. I really am lousy at vacation. I knew I was bad at it. I just didn’t know I was this bad. I don’t like the time away. I don’t like the extra burden before I go and after I return. I have trouble disconnecting my brain from my…
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Out of love
a homily for Proper 17C Text: Luke 14:1,7-14 The rude one We have all had the common experience of the cell phone conversation at the checkout. We are patiently waiting in line for our turn, while the person in front of us is yacking away about somebody named Tiffany and how her daughter…
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Law and Liberation
a homily for Proper 16C Text: Luke 13:10-17 The third time’s a charm Let me start with a conceit. As is so often the case, what Jesus says and does is not heard the same way by everyone. Jesus is breaking the law. For those who benefit from the lawbreaking, particularly the woman in…
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May He See Us
a homily for Proper 6C Text: Luke 7:36-8:3 The Awkward Dinner If I were to ask you to name a person, living or dead you’d like to have over for dinner, after hearing this story, I’m guessing you wouldn’t say “Jesus”. Jesus makes a lousy dinner guest for the faithful. The people that need help…
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The scandalous character of ministry
The Lectionary did us no favors by jumping into Luke at chapter 7, skipping what I think are the two most important chapters in the whole gospel in 5 and 6. Smack in between the calling of disciples and the Sermon on the Plain is one of my favorite moments of Jesus’s. It is striking…
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Let the good stuff out
a Homily for Proper 17B Text: Mark 7:1-23 Those Dirty Hands You may have noticed that I read the whole gospel pericope, not the shortened version in the lectionary. The primary reason is because the full story makes more sense than the edited version. The second reason is because what was removed is the part…