An Episcopal Priest's Sermons, Prayers, and Reflections on Life, Becoming Human, and Discovering Our Divinity
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons What comes to mind when you think about Maundy Thursday? Most of us probably think about the foot washing and the last supper. That’s certainly part of what happens…
Read More Re-membering – A Sermon On John 13:1-17, 31-35 For Maundy Thursday
The year my dad was in Viet Nam my mom, sister, and I lived in my mom and dad’s hometown. I was about nine or ten years old. Every few weeks I’d go to Alfie’s Barber Shop for a haircut.…
Read More How’s Your Love Life? – A Sermon On Mark 12:28-34
What if you and I are to be good shepherds too? What if laying down life is really about love and how we are to love? Isn’t that what we heard in today’s epistle (1 John 3:16-24)? “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” I wonder where that kind of love is in your life today, what it asks of you, what it offers you. Is it in your marriage, parenting, friendships? At work? Is it the lens through which you see the world and the daily struggles of people? Is it at the heart of your conversations, actions, decisions? If it is, what does it look like? How are you experiencing it? And if it’s not, why not? What would your need to change to love that way?
Here’s my question: In what ways are you fragrancing the life of others? I hope you understand that I’m not talking about perfume or rubbing someone’s feet. I’m asking about love. I am talking about the kind of love that is absolutely free and will cost us everything. I’m not talking about love that is based on feelings or attraction but the kind of love that is a choice and a commitment by which we pour out on another all that we are and all that we have. I am talking about loving someone to death, and beyond. I’m asking you to look at how you love in light of Mary and Judas. Let them be the lenses through which you look at yourself.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” These, Jesus says, are the two commandments on which everything else hangs. They are two sides of the same thing. You can’t truly have one without the other. This is about more than our feelings or affection for God and one another. It’s about our commitment to the life and well-being of the other. It’s a choice we make every day - to love or not to love. I wonder what that love looks like. I wonder what your life and my life would be like if we held those two commandments as the guiding principles for what we do. I wonder what we might create and achieve if we embodied and lived those commandments.
Maundy Thursday - John 13:1-17, 31-35 The last couple of days I’ve been thinking of previous Maundy Thursdays and previous foot washings. There are no feet to wash tonight but I think there’s something to be learned from that. …
Read More Let’s Never Stop Loving – A Maundy Thursday Sermon On John 13:1-7, 31-35
Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm 67; 1 John 4:7-16; John 15:9-12 Sophie, Tyler, I am going to give you a word for your marriage and life together. It’s a Hebrew word. It’s used seventy-one times in the Book of Psalms. Selah. Do…
Read More Selah: Instructions For A Marriage – A Wedding Sermon
Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7 and John 15:9-12 By Johannes Munz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons I am going to start by asking you some simple questions - yes or no kind of questions. I don’t mean…
Read More The Double Yes of Marriage – A Wedding Sermon On Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7
Today’s gospel (Luke 9:51-62) is a difficult one. It’s confrontational and it doesn’t leave much, if any, wiggle room. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” We’re either looking toward the kingdom or we are not. We’re either responding to the call of life or we’re not. We’re either open to the coming future or we’re not.
Those are not demands we make on each other. They are gifts we offer each other. And with a true gift there is no holding back. It’s all or nothing. If there is a measure of your marriage, it is love, and the only measure of love is love without measure (St. Augustine).
So you must always keep your ears and heart open to the urging and wooing of each other. It just might be the urging and wooing of God. Because if “God is love” (1 John 4:8) then the wooing of love is the wooing of God.
Interrupting the Silence 