Week of April 18, 2021
There are two sentences from last Sunday’s Epistle that seem to be in conflict with one another. The first is If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is…
Week of April 11, 2021
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You…
Week of April 4, 2021
Even before his death, Jesus’ body, his physical flesh, seems to have a more pronounced role than it does earlier in the Gospels. His feet are anointed by Mary. He throws his body onto the ground, crying out in prayer to God to have the horrific burden lifted from him. He grasps Peter’s feet, having bound up him…
Week of March 28, 2021
Over the next few weeks, we will be engaging in the transition back to “the new normal” more and more. For Palm Sunday and the Feast Day of the Resurrection (aka Easter) we will offer both in-person worship and a service online. But this represents, for lack of a better term, two separate worship events…
Week of March 21, 2021
Last Sunday’s Gospel verse from John featured the iconic sentence “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” whose numerical reference (3:16) was a fixture of signs held at sporting events, back when people attended such…
Week of March 14, 2021
Warning: spoilers for the television series WandaVision below For those of you unfamiliar with WandaVision, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and television series, or the comic book superheroes the Avengers in general, let me give you a little background. In the Avengers movies, Vision is a robot-turned-superhero who gains sentience and the capacity for human…
Week of March 7, 2021
One of the notes I wrote down during my Lenten retreat was, “you can get a lot done when you have nothing to do.” Absent the tasks of making family members breakfast, checking emails and messages, and having a long list of tasks to accomplish, I found myself instead doing the daily office, reading and…
Week of February 28, 2021
While on my Lenten retreat, I took the opportunity to hike to Hidden in the Hollow falls, which is (the brochure told me) the largest falls west of the Alleghanies and east of the Rockies. The brochure also said that the trail was 1.6 miles to the falls and largely downward in direction, and then 1.6…
Week of February 21, 2021
This Sunday’s Gospel reading is a little strange for two reasons: First, the baptism of our Lord is observed in the liturgical calendar on the first Sunday after Epiphany. Second, historically baptism is associated with Easter, not the onset of Lent. So why are we hearing this now? I believe the biggest reason is to…
Week of February 14, 2021
A long time ago when I was in college, I had a very uncomfortable conversation. A person I was very close to needed to apologize about something and decided that the opportune time to do that was while we were on a long drive. So there I am, having a conversation I really don’t want…