Learning to Become in an Unraveling World
Blessed are those who learned how to love the whole Earth before they could see it from space. Blessed are those who love their neighbor and care for the stranger because that’s how they were raised, or because that’s what they experienced, or because the Spirit had a hold on them.
Read MorePreparing for this service, I found myself dwelling on dancing.
Read MoreNow, we know that Jesus knows this story. 2nd Kings would have been scripture for Jesus, scripture he would have definitely read and potentially memorized. Maybe that’s where his comment comes from. Maybe he has Naaman in mind when he calls the man who came back a foreigner. And maybe he was hoping that this healing would end the same way Naaman’s did: in community. Maybe it’s not anger or pettiness in his voice. Maybe it’s sadness.
Read MoreWhen we, like the synagogue leader, are overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s grief, let us remember that we are set free. We do not have to complete the all good work that needs doing in the world, but neither are we free to abandon it.
So what if we can’t do enough?
Jesus has set us free to do good now.
Read MoreAn outline of the service with links to specific aspects of the service.
Read MoreWhen there is temptation to crush yourself for societal approval into the minister you think others expect you to be, we commission you to be genuine and honest, integrated and authentic. We commission you to laugh, to be joyful, and to take delight in God’s world.
Read MoreDo this, as often as you drink it,
Because it is in that moment that I will be with you again.
God of all things, we hold these two together,
The beauty and tragedy of life,
As we lay hands on the candidate.
We ordain them to a ministry of beauty:
May they share it and may they make it,
Always pointing back to you.
I have never once heard a bishop preach on the word “today” in Luke 4.
Read MoreMay this ordination not be an end, but a beginning—
A sacred vow to walk gently and firmly,
To lift others with humility,
And to restore what has been broken,
With courage, prayer, and community.
As you participate in the service today, consider how you can bring healing and justice, knowing what you know about this land and its people. It is not within our power to heal everything and bring justice everywhere. But there is still much we can do.
Read MoreLove isn’t sentimental or a fleeting passion: it’s a commitment to choose one another, to never abandon each other, and to stand side by side with each other. That’s why these three remain.
Read MoreA dance to science.
Read MoreWe commission you to face the world’s suffering, to see it and bear witness, and to meet it with Christ’s compassion.
When there is temptation to crush yourself for societal approval into the minister you think others expect you to be, we commission you to be genuine and honest, integrated and authentic. We commission you to laugh, to be joyful, and to take delight in God’s world.
Read MoreExtend me some trust, as a fellow Christian. I will listen to your understanding of the word and you’ll listen to mine. I’ll tell you about Joseph and his fabulous coat, as he steps outside the expected norms of his day or maybe I’ll tell you about the a’dam and how God’s first human was neither man nor woman, like me. I will share the new joys I find in reading scripture and I’ll carefully hold the ones you want to share with me.
Because I love the Bible. And the Bible belongs to all of us.
Let’s trust each other with it.
Let’s be worthy of that trust.
Read MoreThis means that we can play with light in worship. What would it look like for us to sit in the quiet and in the dark, listening for God together? How can we invite in different kinds of light in different seasons? Where is light too bright? Where could shadows be illuminated? Where could they be used to help us see the familiar anew? How can light and dark together invite us deeper into God’s presence?
Read MoreJesus gives us the bread of life interrupted, the bread of new life, so that we can be fed for the road ahead of us. And Jesus breaks the bread, just as so much in our world is broken, and we receive it, just as we first received the gift of life, beautiful even in a broken world.
Read MoreSo Jesus runs the Legion out. He runs them off a cliff. And after he does this, he stays, until the man, no longer Legion, sits amongst them, clothed, fully restored to himself.
And then Jesus sends him back.
What do we do with the bad in the world?
What do we do with the evil we see?
Read More