Matthew 26:14-27:66
What do you prefer to have in your hand today? The palm? The thirty pieces of silver? The Eucharistic bread which was celebrated on this night in this gospel and which we will receive here? A pillow for sleep? The defending sword? The helpful touch of the cross like that of Simon of Cyrene? The nails and the hammer?…
John 11:1-3,7,17,20-45
I think we’ve all heard the story of Lazarus many times in our lives. Ironically, this account only appears in John’s gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not mention it at all. And you can imagine that biblical scholars all have different suppositions of why this is. But that’s not my focus this morning…
John 9:1-23, 28-41
The video that went viral on YouTube this week was of a British woman, age 39, named JoAnn, who was hearing for the first time by the gift of implants. Her reaction is not at all subtle. There’s tears of amazement, there’s joy, there’s a nervous shaking of her hand as she hears sound for the first time…
John 4:5-42
A reading from the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. I’d like to invite you to be seated – not because the Gospel’s long, but what I’d like to do is a little bit different than I usually do. I’d like to read the Gospel reading and as we’re reading it, I’d like to share some thoughts…
The Junior and Epiphany Choirs presented a musical from the Book of Daniel, titled, “It’s Cool in the Furnace.” It tells the story of Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego during their captivity in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar…
Matthew 4:1-11
Some of you may know that I like golf. I’m thankful for the tickets to the US Open that the parish gave me for my fifteenth anniversary here at St. Paul’s and I look forward to that. Since I’ve been a little kid golf has always been something I’ve been interested in…
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
On the day of your Baptism, you were marked with oil on your forehead. On sharing this thought at the 5:15 service, which was for children, and realized that many of the children gathered there I actually baptized…
2 Peter 1:16-21, Matthew 17:1-9
When I was preparing for this morning’s homily, it keeps on cropping into my mind that I should share something about the Transformers. I’m not truly a fan of the Transformers, however it says something about what we are about today…
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18, Matthew 5:38-48
To be “holier than thou” is not used as a compliment very often. Usually we use the phrase with someone who has annoyed us by a kind of superior goodness, either real or totally put on. And yet scripture commands that in fact we are holy. We are set apart for God…
Matthew 5:21-37
I’ve recently been watching the mini-series The Borgias. It was on Showtime a few seasons ago and now it’s available on Netflix. That’s where I’m watching it. The Borgias is about the time of history about 1492 to 1503 in Italy. It focuses on families at that time…