The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on Trinity Sunday: “The story is difficult to believe sometimes. I don’t mean because of how the math plays out, the three in one. It’s difficult to believe because we don’t often have the clearest sense of God’s presence in our day-to-day lives, God’s presence with and among us.”
The Rev. George Adamik discusses Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21): “Can we speak a language like these early followers of Christ that’s able to communicate the love of Jesus, the transforming vision of Jesus. Can we communicate that in a way that folks can understand, or are we speaking a foreign language?”
Katie and Maggie Loughlin reflect on their experiences growing up at St. Paul’s and participating in the Episcopal Youth Community (EYC).
You can learn a lot about people from their prayers. We each have our own way of communicating with God. Some are mumbled and stuttered and perhaps hesitant, while others are offered with confidence. (John 17:1-11)
The Rev. George Adamik reflects on Acts 17:22-31, Hidden Figures, and IBM: “So often, we can presume that things are seen by people in the same way, that the way I understand things is the way everyone understands them… I wonder if we, as people of faith, function in a world where we think everyone knows what we’re doing and everyone knows what Jesus is about. But we don’t live in that kind of a world.”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista considers John 14:1-14: “At this point, the disciples had been following Jesus for some time… and yet even then, the disciples still struggled to understand what it means to follow Jesus… Following Jesus rarely comes with a road map.”
The Rev. George Adamik discusses Acts 2:42-47 and what we can learn from the community of early followers in the Acts of the Apostles: “Interestingly, it’s not called the teachings of the apostles. It’s not called the beliefs or dogmas of the apostles. It’s called the Acts of the Apostles. We read it and see how they acted and how they engaged in the world as they discerned who they were called to be.”
Odd things in scripture capture my imagination, like there are several places in scripture where we meet pairs of people. Pairs invite us to think about relationships about what connects them, about what makes them communities of understanding either held or sought (Luke 24:13-35).
The Rev. Candy Snively discusses John 20:19-31: “No matter where you are or who you are with, Christ stands among his people, among us, saying ‘Peace, be with you,’ breathing life into what looks lifeless. Regardless of the circumstances, Jesus shows up bringing peace.”
On Easter Day, the Rt. Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple reflects on the “scandalous” news of Christ’s death and resurrection (John 20:1-18): “The scandal is that, as much as we human beings make a mess of things, the invitation to be made new is issued anew today in this day of resurrection. The tomb, the emptiness, is actually God’s womb that will miraculously bring forth new life.” (The Rt. Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple is Bishop Diocesan Pro Tempore and VI Bishop Suffragan of North Carolina.)