Matthew 3:1-12
Have you ever read something, while you’re reading a paragraph or you get to the bottom of the page, where you stop and say, “What did I just read? It doesn’t make any sense.” You go back and read it again. That happened a lot to me when I was in seminary…
Matthew 24:36-44
Rrrring! Oh, how I hate to hear that sound early in the morning. Such a jarring wake up call, especially when you’re sound asleep. Am I the only one tempted to press the snooze button right about now? …
Luke 23:33-43
Two things today: a teaching and a reflection. Today is the Feast of Christ the King. It’s the last Sunday of the liturgical year. The next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent which begins a new liturgical year…
2 Luke 22:33-43
Many of us have hopeful pictures in our lives. We might call them “dream pictures,” pictures that are early set in us and are often deep. Pictures of how we would like life to be. Or perhaps some picture that our parents have painted for us of the good life…
Luke 20:27-38
How many of you know the comedian George Carlin? I don’t want to surprise you, but he’s one of my favorite comedians. Actually, Robin Williams and George Carlin are both in a similar category for me…
Matthew 5:1-12
Imagine with me, if you can, that we lost all the scriptures. They disappeared from the Planet Earth. But all we had was this text that we just read from Matthew’s Gospel. This Gospel reading that is often referred to as the Beatitudes. I believe that if that’s all we had, we’d have what we need to know what it means to be a follower of Jesus…
Luke 18:9-14
On a wall in my den at home there is a small bulletin board where I put things I don’t want to lose or I cannot think of anywhere else to place them. Things like appointment reminder cards and the schedule of clergy duties on Sunday morning that George sends out to us every few months…
2 Luke 18:1-8
“Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” For how many of us, was that the first prayer we were asked to memorize? Or did you rewrite it for your children as I did for my daughter?…
Luke 17:11-19
A few years ago I was visiting a parishioner at the hospital, who was dying. I remember arriving there, and the family was gathered in the hospital room. I spent some time there. When someone is dying it’s just a very sacred time. I always try to respect a family’s time together…
2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10
There’s a great tendency to think of faith as something that I own. “My faith,” you often hear someone say. “The way I believe.” For faith is some felt experience of being right with God, is another interpretation. Or of God moving in knowable ways in my life. If I perceive it, I have faith. If I do not, then I am short on faith…