I'm cruising on the river of life, happy to trust the flow, enjoying the ride as I live into a new season of life and ministry as the Priest in Charge at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster Groves, MO. I am also co-founder of the Partnership for Renewal, a church vitality nonprofit. You are most welcome to visit my blog anytime and enjoy the ride with me. Peace.
Sunday, October 6, 2024
20 Pentecost & Baptism, 2024-B: A guarantee of love
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Pentecost 18, 2024-B: Open, expectant, and certain
Proper 20 Lectionary: Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 54 ; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37
En el nombre del Dios: creador, redentor y santificador. Amen.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
Sunday, September 8, 2024
16 Pentecost, 2024-B: Super heroes and she-roes for Jesus
En el nombre de Dios, creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.
Sunday, September 1, 2024
15 Pentecost, 2024-B: Create in us clean hearts
Lectionary: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
En el nombre del Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.
- lasciviousness – a thought: disrespecting another using sex as the means
- fornication – an action: disrespecting another’s or one’s own body usually through sex
- covetousness – a thought: wanting something that doesn’t belong to you
- theft – an action: taking that thing that doesn’t belong to you
- adultery – an action and a thought: taking or emotionally cleaving to someone who doesn’t belong to you
- murder – an action: taking a life that doesn’t belong to you (since all life belongs to God)
- slander – an action: making false or damaging statements about someone in order to harm them or their reputation • blasphemy – an action: doing the same thing about God and sacred things
- pride – a thought: giving ‘self’ priority over other, even over God. Pride is the opposite of humility, which characterized Jesus, his ministry. The cultivation of humility is one of the main purposes of our rituals. And pride leads to…
- folly. A thought or an action: When we think unwisely, we tend to act unwisely.
“The coming of the Kingdom is perpetual. Again and again, freshness, novelty, power from beyond the world break in by unexpected paths bringing unexpected change. Those who cling to tradition and fear all novelty in God's relation to the world deny the creative activity of the Holy Spirit, and forget that what is now tradition was once innovation; that the real Christian is always a revolutionary, belongs to a new race, and has been given a new name and a new song.”
The church is supposed to be a place where the condition of our hearts can be examined safely within a community where love is practiced. When we find that we have gone astray, as individuals or as a community, we are supported in our repentance by a community that continually cultivates humility through our ritual practices. In this way, over time, we are able restore the priority of God’s will for us over our own.
“Give your heart to love today, not to old thoughts of who you were, but to the new idea that your kindness could change another life. Give your mind to hope today, not to the usual list of impossibilities, but to a single faith that goodness is the purpose of history. Give your spirit to peace today, not to the anger of the moment, but to the welcoming road of grace that leads to the home for which you have longed. Give your hands to the work of justice today, not in resignation but in certainty, knowing that what you do will make an enormous difference.”
Sunday, August 11, 2024
12 Pentecost, 2024-B: The gift and power of Communion
Sunday, August 4, 2024
11 Pentecost, 2024-B: Strengthen our belief
Sunday, July 14, 2024
8 Pentecost, 2024-B: Our prophetic message to the world
En el nombre de Dios, creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.
Sunday, July 7, 2024
7 Pentecost, 2024-B: Ready, receptive, transformable
Lectionary, Track 2: Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13
Sunday, June 23, 2024
5 Pentecost, 2024-B: Receive the peace
En el nombre de Dios, creador, redentor, y santificador. Amen.
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And [God] led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.” Source