The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista reflects on 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 and the endurance of wisdom: “We are complicated people, and each day we are given choices. We require wisdom to do not just that which is convenient but that which is right. Will we seek after God’s wisdom?”
The Rev. Candy Snively discusses John 6:35, 41-51: “Have you ever wondered why doesn’t God speak up? Or let alone, why doesn’t God step up? The idea of leaving everything up to God may seem naive to us during critical times.”
The Rev. George Adamik reflects on John 6:24-35 and growing up during the turbulent 1960s: “We can live into God’s dream and God’s hope, and, as Bishop Curry so often says, step out of the nightmare that we have created into the dream God has for creation. When we look at the world today and our country, we can’t just say ‘it’s the way it is.’ No, it’s not; it can be something different.”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista reflects on John 6:1-21: “In Islam, the pilgrim or believer is often imagined as a bird with two wings: one of the wings is fear, one of the wings is fear. In order to make her journey through life, the believer must hold these two in tension.”
The Rev. Candy Snively discusses Ephesians 2:11-22 and the dividing walls of “hostility between us.”
The Rev. Adrienne Koch reflects on Mark 6:14-29: “Have you ever had that feeling that you missed an opportunity to really get to know someone because all you could see in them was a ghost from your past? Maybe it was your first date after a breakup or divorce […] Maybe it was right after you moved to a new place, looking to make friends […] Sometimes, we think we already know who someone is.”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista considers Mark 6:1-13: “What kind of person is a prophet? Abraham Heschel had something to say about that… He describes a prophet as a person concerned with God’s involvement not just in the big events but in the particular circumstances of day-to-day existence.”
Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Church is not the place you come to, it’s the place you you go from.” … As we go from here today, what is it that we bring – to a world surrounding us right now that seems to be filled with violence, hatred, conflict, bullying, racism, condescending of other people, personal attacks on people – it’s the world that we go out into….
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Paul’s radical message to a community in conflict (2 Corinthians 6:1-13): “The great hope of the Christian faith, the scandalous thing about it, the most daring thing it offers, is that the past does not have to determine our future. Our scandalous hope is that God will not judge us by our worst moment or by the popular opinion poll of our potential… Will we treat people according to society’s worst assumptions of who they are, or will we treat them exactly as we ourselves have been treated by God?”
The Rt. Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple visits St. Paul’s and reflects on spiritual growth (Mark 4:26-34): “If you’re a good farmer, you don’t just think about the harvest this summer, you think about what you’re doing to get ready for the next season, and the next, and all the seasons to come.”