Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. The Holy Trinity. A theological issue that took many years and many arguments to solidify as church doctrine. One of the hallmarks of our faith as Christians. And…
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! There is a practice in the Orthodox tradition to tells jokes at Easter in honor of the joke that Jesus played on death in the resurrection. Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Sara was a precocious 5 year old. She loved going to church and Sunday…
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. The woman at the well. The Samaritan woman. Her name has been lost to us, and so we know her only in describing her. And yet, what she has to teach us is nothing…
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. Today is a day when I wish we could all read and understand Biblical Greek, the original language of the Gospel of John, because our English translation just doesn’t cut it. Unless we read…
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. Have you ever wondered why we have Lent? In “Lenten Discipline”, her sermon on Luke’s version of the temptation of Jesus in the desert, Episcopal priest and scholar Barbara Brown Taylor gives a wonderful…
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. Advent is the beginning of the church year, and I love that the church turns the page on a fresh calendar as the hours of sunlight approach their nadir. By the time we…
The following was read to close the sermon: A poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes Sure enough, God, I haven’t murdered anybody. Not one. But I have felt it, the heart’s assault, the desire to hurt another, my furtive suffocation of their humanity. Gentle my heart, Loving One. Ease my violence into its grave. Wash my fury clean with compassion, to see the other…