An Episcopal Priest's Sermons, Prayers, and Reflections on Life, Becoming Human, and Discovering Our Divinity
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” That’s the first line in today’s gospel (Matthew 4:1-11) and my first thought is, Well, that’s not fair. The Spirit and the devil…
Read More Let’s Not Waste A Good Temptation – A Sermon On Matthew 4:1-11
Detail of the Fall of Man by By Hugo van der Goes, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons What comes to mind when you think about temptation? What tempts you? What is your greatest temptation today? I ask those questions because…
Read More Facing Our Greatest Temptation – A Sermon On Luke 4:1-13
In some ways the past year has felt like a long never ending season of Lent. It has been a time of fasting, self-denial, and giving up; a time when people and things have been lost or taken from us; a time that is continually pointing to our mortality and the fragility of life. What are you doing with all that? And what is all that doing with you? Unless we face our own mortality we can never claim the fullness of life. Unless we recognize the fragility of life we will never discover its true value.
Jesus got up early, while it was still very dark, and left the security of the house to go to this deserted place, this wilderness place. My guess is that nobody wants to go to that place and yet we’ve all been there. I wonder what your deserted place is today. What parts of your life are dry, barren, empty, and desolate?
It was The Third Sunday in Lent. We had planned to celebrate the Holy Eucharist beginning with the penitential order. It ended up being a different kind of Sunday; not your usual Third Sunday in Lent. We omitted the penitential…
Read More The First Sunday Of COVID-19 – A Reflection On Exodus 17:1-7
The promise and risk of life come to us asking for a response. Jesus had decisions to make. And so do we. We make decisions everyday of our life; decisions and choices about what to do, who we want to be, how we want to live. We sometimes call them temptations. We feel torn and pulled between the promise and the risk. Temptations hold before us the illusion of promise without risk. But that’s not the way the wilderness works, and Jesus knows that.
With each decision we’re betting that the future will be better, not because it necessarily is, but because it might be. And that “might,” the possibility of a better future, of more life, is what gives us the strength, the faith, the hope, to risk a decision and remain open to the future, even when we don’t know how it will turn out.
In what ways are you living as a displaced person? What parts of your life feel uprooted and disconnected? What is your displacement?
"Comfort, O comfort my people," are God's words to displaced people. Isaiah first spoke those words to people exiled in Babylon, people whose lives had been uprooted. Those same words come to the displaced people of God today. In some way the prophetic word is always directed to displaced people. And we long to hear those words of comfort. We want to find our place. More than anything displaced people want to be a placed people.
Lent 1A: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11 Over the last several years I've begun to see and understand Lent and temptations, the struggles in my life, in a different way. It used to be that I thought about those…
Read More Two Questions for Lent – A Sermon on Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11
Luke 4:1-13 Jesus overcame the temptations in the wilderness. He made it possible for us to overcome our temptations. Be like Jesus and just say no. Does that sound familiar? I wonder if that’s how we often hear today’s gospel…
Read More Rethinking Temptation: It’s More Than Just Saying No – A Sermon on Luke 4:1-13
The wilderness, John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord. They are three major images in today’s gospel, Mark 1:1-8. They are three signposts on the Advent journey. They are three windows into our heart. I want us to…
Read More Advent, A Season in the Wilderness – A Sermon on Mark 1:1-8
Interrupting the Silence 