From my lectio this morning:
“Good things poured out upon a mouth that is closed are like offerings of food placed upon a grave …
To Ferne Halwes: Anglicanism as Pilgrimage
“Anglicanism is a mess—a beautiful mess, but still a mess.”
I do love being Anglican. If I hadn’t encountered God’s embrace in Anglicanism’s sacramental life and open sensibility, I’m not sure I would have returned to the Church at all. So, I am truly, unfeignedly thankful that our Communion exists. But I must confess to making apologetic statements like this on behalf of our tradition on a semi-regular basis. Friends from every ecumenical quarter are often puzzled by the amorphous phenomenon called ‘Anglicanism,’ variously poking fun at and valiantly struggling to understand who and what we are.
Sick of This
A Sermon for Lent 4 (Year C)
How many days in a row can you eat the same thing before you get sick of it? 2… 3 days? A week?
I’m a creature of extreme habit; so my tolerance for culinary monotony might be a little higher than average. But even I eventually get sick of eating the same thing, day in and day out. I think most of us probably know the feeling. If we’re fortunate, we’re able to change things up. We can choose something new when we’ve gotten sick of the old. “Eh, I’m sick of pizza; let’s get sushi instead.” But sometimes we don’t get a choice.
My Body, My Blood
A Sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation
Mary was a priest.
Now, I don’t mean that she was a priest in the way that, say, Father Craig is a priest. I’m not saying that she was necessarily ordained, ministering the Sacraments and other rituals of the Church. But still, today, on this feast of the Annunciation, we do see Mary as a priest in a very real sense.
Reaching Roots
A Sermon for Epiphany 6 (Year C)
“Just reach out if you need anything!”
That phrase gets a lot of mileage in our lives. Maybe too much mileage… It’s the standard line that we offer to friends, and that they offer us in return. But how often do you actually take someone up on that offer? I know I rarely do. Even when I know I need it… even when I know the offer’s sincere… I hate actually asking for help.
Gallons of Grace
A Sermon for Epiphany 2 (Year C)
“I’m running on empty.”
How many of us have heard or said something like these words in just the last few weeks? The past two years have taken so much from us—from each and every one of us. They’ve taken our health, our loved ones, our lives, our hope. The pandemic has sapped away so much of our energy—our will to live. It’s drained away so much of our joy. And now, as yet another variant of the virus rages around us, we’re seeing the tiny glimpses of “normal” that we’d caught slip away before our eyes. And it’s crushing.
It’s understandable that we would feel desolate, worn down, forsaken. This is hard. It’s so, so hard. The heartbreak from canceling plans and refusing hugs. The sadness from covering our lips that long to smile and sing. The exhaustion from trying to nurture our children in the midst of this storm. The frustration from struggling to keep patients alive. It’s okay to feel like you’ve got nothing left to give to feel like you’re running on empty. Because our emptiness is not the end. The story doesn’t end when our wells run dry.
An Image of the Mystery of the Church
One of the synthesis exercises for the ecclesiology seminar I took was to lay out a concept map of our understanding of the Church. It was a fun exercise that I’d highly recommend! Here’s what I came up with:
Bodies that Matter to God
Seminary Chapel Reflection
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” — 1 Cor. 6:19-20
I don’t know if this will resonate with many of you, but this passage from Paul was a constant refrain in my childhood. The cheerleaders of Evangelical Protestant “purity culture” loved these verses as a way to discourage any activity they found even mildly objectionable.