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weaving

Whose You Are

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21 Jan 2014

Third Sunday after Epiphany
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23

While in Divinity school, I went on a travel seminar to the Middle East with thirty-nine other seminary students and lay people. During our time in Jerusalem, we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which sits atop the traditional site of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

It is a place of immense consequence for the Christian faith, and it’s unsurprising that representatives from multiple denominations are housed inside the church. The description “sharing space” would be too strongly worded and ultimately inaccurate, for these six denominations have partitioned the churches down to the tile. Armenians are only allowed in a certain area, Orthodox in another, Catholics can process in a certain area for a determined amount of time, etc. Our guide recounted stories of garbed priests name-calling and throwing punches because a priest moved a piece of furniture or stepped a couple of tiles too far to the left during a procession.

Despite the fact that these men all follow the Prince of Peace, they’ve allowed their denominational affiliation to supersede their common Christian identity. Centuries of very public bickering and violence is the result. Read more

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potter's wheel

To Rest in Requiring Hands

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4 Sep 2013

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 18:1-11
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

I have long admired hand-made pottery. So when a friend who had been throwing pots for some time asked me if I would be interested in learning, I was more than enthusiastic. All of my exposure to wheel-thrown pottery indicated a serene, meditative act, and I could use a bit more of that in my life. The first day at the wheel, I held my newly kneaded lump of clay, eager for peaceful art-making, when my friend instructed me to raise up my clay in both hands and slam it down on the wheel.

“Slam?” I asked, perplexed.

“Slam,” she answered. Read more

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crucifixion

A Different Sort of History

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2 Jul 2013

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Kings 5:1-14 OR Isaiah 66:10-14
Galatians 6:7-18
Luke 10:1-12, 16-20

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in

reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving
how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel!”
-Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

“Well, boy, if he’s an angel, he’s sure a murderin’ angel.”
-The Killer Angels

It’s a week of significant anniversaries in North America. July 1 is the 146th year since the passage of the British North America Act, creating the Dominion of Canada, July 1-3 is the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg, the so-called turning point in the American Civil War, and July 4th marks 237 years since the Declaration of Independence provided justification for a military rebellion already in progress. Canada Day is rather less blood-spattered than the American anniversaries, largely thanks to the outcomes of much earlier battles in Quebec in 1759and 1775, and along the Niagara frontier and Lower Canada in 1813-14. These commemorations, however, suggest how much human history celebrates noble gestures, great events, and admirable acts of courage, while glossing over base expediencies, savage violence, and cold exercises of power. Read more

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Saul conversion

Do You Love Me?

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11 Apr 2013

Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 9: 1-20
Psalm 30
Revelation 5: 11-14
John 21: 1-19

What a gift the Great Fifty Days are for the church! Time to celebrate. Time to ponder. Celebrate and ponder the stupefying wonder that is the Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Here we are on the third Sunday of Easter and the disciples still aren’t getting it. Their continued bafflement speaks volumes to the shock of what has taken place. Thousands of years later the ripples of that decisive Act of God can continue to confound us; the church is still in need of this gift of time to yearly reorient ourselves to what God is up to.

Unexpected, startling, the Resurrection of Jesus has left the disciples at loose ends, unsure of what the implications are and of what they are to do with themselves. “I am going fishing.” says Simon Peter in this Sunday’s text from John. This is the first hint in John’s gospel that some of the disciples are former fishermen. When confronted with something surprisingly new, it seems to be human nature to fall back on old ways. The others, lacking for any better ideas of what to do, decide to join him. They hang out the “Gone Fishing” sign and head for the boat, though their efforts prove fruitless. It all seems a bit anticlimactic and even a little lame after everything that’s happened. Perhaps the real miracle is that the church was birthed at all! Read more

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fra-angelico-resurrection-det1-1438-45

Rejoice! Our Work Has Just Begun!

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27 Mar 2013

Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34-43
Ps 118
Col 3:1-4 OR 1 Cor 5:6-8 OR 1 Cor 15:19-26
Jn 20:1-9 OR Lk 24:1-12

We didn’t expect this. No matter how many times we’re told the story, we never do. Like Hazel Motes in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, most of us shout to the world through our attitudes and actions – if not necessarily with words – that, “I’m a member and preacher to that church where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way.” Read more

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