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Open Your Door
Maundy Thursday – April 2021 Jesus, knowing that he was about to die, spent his last night sharing a meal with his disciples and teaching them, by example, by washing their feet. He was pointing out that no one person is greater than another. And he leaves us with a new commandment: “…that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” What does this mean to you…now….today? What does it look…
Choices
4 Lent – March 14, 2021 John 3:14-21 Today’s scripture is filled with paradox. Fascinating paradox. In our first reading, God tells Moses to make a poisonous serpent out of bronze, set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” And then Jesus reminds us of this in our gospel passage. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Healed by looking at a serpent on a pole? It’s important to know that, in…
Spring Cleaning
3 Lent – March 7, 2021 John 2:13-22 Today we’re hearing about one of the few times in scripture where Jesus is angry. A righteous anger to be sure, but wow….making a whip of cords, driving the animals and people out of the temple, pouring out coins and overturning tables. This is not a description of a meek and mild Jesus, for sure. So, a little background on the times to help us understand where Jesus was coming from…
Wound on wound
2 Lent – February 28, 2021 Mark 8:31-38 With all of the loss and pain and isolation and death we’ve been experiencing through this past year, Peter’s rebuke feels especially poignant at this time. I can relate to Peter. In our reading from Mark, Jesus predicts his death for the first time. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering,” Jesus tells his disciples. He must “be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be…
Pick up your Vision
Blessed Absalom Jones Feast – February 14, 2021 Isaiah 42:5-9 and John 15:12-15 Not sure how many of you watched the annual Diocesan service for Blessed Absalom Jones yesterday, but it was beautiful, it was well done. And the sermon by The Rt. Rev. Carlye Hughes – she is the Bishop of the Diocese of Newark, was inspiring. The theme this year is “out of many, one”. You may recall that the Great Seal of the United States has…
Wholeness
4 Epiphany – January 31, 2021 Mark 1:21-28 So, I think today’s gospel story may be difficult for many of us to relate to. It sounds like an exorcism story and many of us have no direct experience of that. But there is so much we can learn from this story. Mark tells this story about unclean spirits and he tells it up front. In other words at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark. Keep in mind…
Follow Me
3 Epiphany – January 24, 2021 Mark 1:14-20 Our gospel reading begins a bit ominously, with John arrested and Jesus arriving in what was considered the backwaters of Capernaum in Galilee – Gentile territory. This means that Jesus, who is beginning his ministry, does not go to some holy place, to some religious center. Instead, he withdraws to Galilee, heathen Galilee, Galilee of the Gentiles, a place where, according to Jewish belief, pure faith has been distorted. So at the…
Wade in the Water
1 Epiphany: Baptism of our Lord – January 10, 2021 Genesis 1:1-5 and Mark 1:4-11 I believe we are all disturbed, or should be disturbed, by the riots and siege of the US Capitol this past week. For me, at first, it felt like watching a movie or a tv show for entertainment value, knowing that something like that could never happen in real life. And then feeling sick, because it was really was happening. And I’m still trying…
Home by Another Road
Epiphany – January 3, 2021 Matthew 2:1-12 Eckhart Tolle has said – “No matter how long your journey appears to be, there is never more than this: one step, one breath, one moment….Now.” Now. Today we are celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany – which actually occurs on Wednesday the 6th – the twelfth day of Christmas – but we’re moving the feast to celebrate it in today’s worship. I love the Epiphany story. It’s one of my favorites…
Small Gestures
Christmas Eve 2020 And so it is Christmas. Granted, a Christmas like no other, no matter what your circumstances are. And yet, we are hearing a familiar story. But this familiar story, for me, has taken on a deeper meaning because of the challenges presented this year. The ‘light shining in the darkness’ has taken me deeper this year. There is the somewhat obnoxious question to ask when going through a difficult, painful, dark time, of “where is God…
Who are you?
3 Advent – December 13, 2020 John 1:6-8, 19-28 If you’ve ever applied for a job, an internship, applied to graduate school or possibly for a grant, you’ve spent a lot of time crafting strategic answers to one question: “Who are you?” If you’ve ever obsessed over your Facebook profile, or spent hours perfecting a Tweet, you know how complicated the question can get. Who are you? What is your brand? What carefully packaged version of yourself do you want…
God in the Darkness
2 Advent – December 6, 2020 Mark 1:1-8 On August 1, 2020, the Sarah K. Evans Plaza opened in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. ( “Sarah K. Evans Inclusive Public Art Project,” accessed August 20, 2020, http://sarahkevansproject.com/) Sarah Evans, formerly known as Private Evans, is now 91 years old, and she reflects on the seemingly unremarkable event that led to this public recognition almost 70 years later. In 1952 Private Evans was on her way home from Fort Dix, her first…