I noticed for the first time a turn of phrase used only by Luke to describe the disciples at the Mount of Olives on Thursday night: Jesus returns from his solitary prayer to find the disciples sleeping “because of grief.” (22:45) In Luke’s depiction, they can read the writing on the wall and have already […]
I’ve been participating in the Community Cross Walk since we first began holding it 21 years ago. The particular old wooden cross we use was originally the property of the St. Gregory’s congregation – I suppose technically it still is — but since the walk ends at our church, it’s always been stored out-of-the-way in […]
Last night at David’s study group on the Lord’s Prayer, the petition we focused our attention on was: “And lead us not into temptation.” The petition is confusing. On the one hand, it implies that God could choose to lead us into temptation – the time of trial. Why, we may wonder, would a loving […]
In yesterday’s reflection I took note of five distressing news accounts of violence I came across in the New York Times. In that same copy, I was touched by another story that caught my attention. City officials have long been attempting to clear the streets of Times Square of homeless persons. Apparently at present there is […]
I picked up the New York Times today, and these are the news stories that jumped out at me, reminding me that the violence and oppression that Jesus confronted in Jerusalem are still very much in the world today: In Russia, two female suicide bombers killed thirty-eight people riding the subway. In Mexico, twenty-one persons […]
Yesterday in worship we once again acted out Palm Sunday with the children. In preparation I got down some of the Christmas pageant costumes from the attic, which inspired me to incorporate more characters than I usually do. I had two of the larger men of the congregation wearing Roman soldier armor and helmets. When […]
So I’m sitting in my office late Saturday afternoon — the day before Palm Sunday — at a loss for what to write for my Lenten reflection. Scanning Luke’s Gospel, my attention is caught by a parable recorded only by Luke, that Jesus tells just before he enters Jerusalem. I decide I will write about […]
Yesterday we looked at the high and hard calling Jesus lays out in the Sermon on the Mount for those who would follow him. Later on in Matthew’s Gospel a private conversation is recorded between Jesus his disciples. Jesus first asks them what the crowds of people are saying about him. Once they’ve given him […]
The Lord’s Prayer is found in a section of the Gospel of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount (Chapters 5 – 7). Pressed by crowds of people, Jesus goes up on a mountaintop. He is joined there not by “the crowds” but rather by far smaller group of people who would aspire to […]
Suffering is an inescapable part of life. Its forms are varied; there is physical pain, grief, betrayal, loneliness, addiction, injustice, and the anxiety that arises before the mystery of death. What has been the shape of suffering in your life? If we ponder our own experience and that of people we know, we see that […]
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