5th Sunday of Easter

Readings for Today

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It’s spring!  Flowers are blooming.  Trees that were bare just weeks ago are filling with new leaves.  Fuzzy ducklings toddle behind their parents. The sun feels warmer.  If colors had scents, I imagine green would smell like sweet spring air and fresh cut grass.  

The renewal of life that happens in spring reminds us that we are still in the Easter season.  Our “Alleluia” refrain, which was so jubilant just five weeks ago, has already gotten a little less exuberant.  Resurrection and new life have gotten to be old news. Reveling in spring this week is a good reminder that new life isn’t old news – it is THE news.

4th Sunday of Easter

Readings for Today.

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Baa.  You might have guessed from the themes running through this morning’s lessons – it’s Good Shepherd Sunday.  On the 4th Sunday of Easter every year, we talk about sheep and shepherds.  We hear how Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep. How the Good Shepherd leaves the entire flock behind to go looking for the one lost sheep.  How the sheep know the Shepherd’s voice and follow him.

3rd Sunday of Easter

Readings for Today.

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When I was in college, my roommate started Friday Night Dinners at our apartment.  She invited every young adult we knew - from work, from school, and mostly from HYC - to come over on Friday night to eat and hang out.  We provided lots of food, and, in the gathering of friends, Christ was present. We laughed and cried together, and no one was alone.

2nd Sunday of Easter

Readings for Today.

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Doubt.  It seems like a timely topic these days.  In our world, we look around and see one distressing thing after another:  dead emaciated whales their bellies filled with plastic waste, children starving on every continent, new border walls being built around the world to refuse sanctuary to refugees fleeing from war and violence, humanity’s basic fears fueled by self-centered hate-mongering.  It’s hard to imagine what comes next.

Palm & Passion Sunday

Readings for Today.

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Last year, the day before Palm Sunday was the March for our Lives against Gun Violence.  In the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, Julien and I took our children to the rally and march.  Led by the youth of our community, we joined 100,000 people of all ages and skin colors and religious backgrounds, including our bishop Greg Rickel and many Episcopalians.  We carried signs, we chanted, we used our physical presence to make a statement about our hope for a future that is different than the one where there continues to be a school shooting every 12 days. [1]

We carried signs.  We joined our voices with others.  We chanted our protest, our lament, and our beliefs.  We used our physical bodies to make a statement about our hope for the future.

4th Sunday in Lent

Readings for Today.

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Many of us know this parable that Jesus tells today as the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  It’s one of the longest parables Jesus tells. And one of the most complex because of the familial relationships.  No matter how many times we hear it, we find ourselves in it.

Jesus told parables as a way of engaging his listeners in theologically complex ideas.  Parables use a story of some familiar situation to highlight something that doesn’t make sense by the world’s standards.  Parables often illustrate some promise of the kingdom of God, the spreading of which Jesus began and we continue. Notably, parables seldom ‘finish’ the story; they usually leave the ending open, the storylines waving in the breeze, as a way of engaging us in living the next part of the story.

3rd Sunday in Lent

Readings for Today.

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We know the feeling of horror and disbelief when unimaginably bad things happen to good and innocent people.  When space shuttles filled with the potential of brilliant lives and exploration of the universe explode. When earthquakes and floods, cyclones and hurricanes kill and displace thousands of good-hearted, hard-working families.  When someone walks into the halls of education in Newtown, CT, or Parkland, FL, looking for innocents to slaughter. When people praising God are no longer safe in their houses of worship. How do we find sense in these deaths?