Relating, Creating, Transforming
Mark 9:38-50 POPE-A-LOOZA Last Friday and Saturday, I had the opportunity to spend time with friends in Philadelphia while Pope Francis visited for the World Meeting of Families. I am fortunate to have a few friends in Center City who live in an apartment building right near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Art Museum […]
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Psalm 85:1-8; 10 I want to begin with a question. How many of you feel that your definition of who God is comes mostly from: What your parents or family raised you to believe? Or: From the Bible? Or: From a church? Or: From a spiritual or enlightening experience? Or: From personal life experience? Perhaps […]
Read MoreMark 5:21-43 Triage [in medical situations] is the process of determining the priority of patients’ treatments based on the severity of their condition. Triage is meant to make treatment of patients more efficient when there are not enough resources for all to be treated immediately. Triage comes from the French word trier, meaning to separate, […]
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Mark 2:21-22 Have you moved a lot in your life? I know I have. I have way too many memories of packing up stuff and cleaning out an apartment, a dorm room, or a house. That’s the worst part of moving, isn’t? Each time I moved, I had to come to that awful, eye-opening revelation […]
Read MoreJohn 20:19-31 The movie Philomena is based on the 2009 investigative book by British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] correspondent Martin Sixsmith, entitled, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. Philomena Lee, played by Judi Dench, is an older woman searching for her long-lost son. When Philomena was a young woman living in an Irish-Catholic community, she gave […]
Read MoreMatthew 3:13-17 Baptism stories are always fun to tell because if you think about it, what is stranger, funnier, or more awkward than dressing up someone in white clothes, sprinkling water on his/her head and rubbing it into his/her hair while people stare? Or, if you come from another tradition, what is odder than dunking […]
Read MoreLuke 14:1-14 QUESTION: What is the worst seat you have ever had? Consider a concert, opera, game, classroom, etc. What is the best seat you have ever had? Here we are in Luke’s Gospel, and Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem. Like a previous story about a bent-over woman, here we find a […]
Read MoreActs 9:36-43 Psalm 23 I had prepared to say something different, but Monday came and Boston became a focus for many, and as the week went on, things changed. I am not ever sure that words are adequate in this kind of situation. But when I feel compelled to respond, that means I should. As […]
Read MoreJohn 20:19-31 Some of you know that from March 16-23 I decided to participate in a program of the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia and the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire’s Better Together initiative. The program was called Interfaith Encounters Alternative Spring Break. There were 44 students from the school from around the world, hailing […]
Read MoreLuke 24:1-12 The “Easter” sermon is the hardest one to preach. No really–it is. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the tried-and-true, Christian-crux message with which you can’t go wrong. After all, how do I effectively relate Jesus, the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, and marshmallow peeps? It is a story so misunderstood and so […]
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