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Preaching divorce and unity
This Week: Proper 22B Gospel: Mark 10:2-16 This week’s gospel is deceptive. It seems like it is about divorce. It seems straightforward. And we might be lulled into thinking it encourages a prohibition on divorce or else defends a Christian opposition to divorce. This is a pretty weak take. This gospel story concludes with even more…
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What if we can never commune again?
Stay-at-home orders have left many Christians without regular communion. But what if we can no longer share communion safely?
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Giving Grace
The hardest challenge Jesus gives those inside the church is to recognize that the saving grace is not about who we were before, but during and after. Proper 21A | Matthew 21:23-32 Before Jesus is teaching in the Temple and these chief priests and scribes question his authority, Jesus had to get there. When we…
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What Happens In the Eucharist?
I have a sacramental view of faith. So I believe that it is about vibrant living. That what is behind the sacraments is that we live and breathe and have our being. And not so much magic priestly hands or enlightenment-fueled intellectualism. Both are total crap. What matters is that we’re in this together. I…
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Let’s Talk About the Sacraments.
As much as the flavor of one’s faith is defined by the things they believe, it’s the practice of that faith that reveals. The tactile, experiential is where the proverbial rubber of faith hits the road of life. And hazarding to stretch the analogy beyond its tensile strength, the rubber of our faith is the way…
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Is the church’s message really “we don’t love you”?
For us, the ultimate example of marriage is found in Romeo and Juliet, not Genesis. It comes from true, burning desire to not only have sex with a person, but to be with a person, commit to that person, sit alongside that person every single day. To partner and respect and give and share and live a life…
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Shouldn’t sacraments be alike?
A Should’ve Asked Question When we bring new people into the faith, we often ask them to memorize a short phrase from the back of the Book of Common Prayer. A phrase that many of us can rattle off with little trouble. At least the first half of it, anyway. We sit, Prayer Books in hand…