Nov 22, 2020 |
What's Next?
| The Rev. Gary Lubin
What's Next?
"You know, such a tragic experience can really bring the temporal nature of life and its meaning into very sharp focus. On a personal level it gets me to wondering, what is next, and I think in our guts at the very core of all our beings we all want to know what's next. The disciples wanted to know that too and they repeatedly asked Jesus, “What’s next?”."
Nov 15, 2020 |
Discomfited by the Anger
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Discomfited by the Anger
We are so discomfited by the anger of God that we ignore what God is angry about. We are so overwhelmed by the possibility that God is right about us in these areas where we have fallen short of the love for which we were made. So we say, "well, I just can't hear what God saying because God's just being so bombastic. All of this language about fiery judgment and weeping and gnashing of teeth, I just can't hear what you're saying God. I need you to be nicer to me and then I can hear." We are tone policing our Lord and Savior.
Nov 01, 2020 |
Not the End, but the Beginning
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Not the End, but the Beginning
When I hear this vision of people standing before the throne, great throngs of every tribe and race and people and nation standing before God with gratitude and love, I immediately think of the lines I see all across the country of people standing to vote. I don't think about everyone dying and going to the right place when they die, I think about everyone living here and now and participating in the changing of this world here and now with joy and hope in their hearts. My joy is in recognizing how much the people around me love our world and want it to be better.
Oct 25, 2020 |
Love Prevails
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
Love Prevails
Yes, we may be very set in our different views, even to the point of not being able to hear the words of others. But might we not refuse to allow our minds to shut down our hearts? Might we refuse to allow our minds to shut down our hearts? Might, in our hearts, we find a truer understanding of the other? Might you see the fully human, deeply fallible condition of us all and embrace that as our common ground? Our space where we can love God and let God be God. Our space where we can love our neighbor as ourselves.
Oct 18, 2020 |
Jesus is not a Cynic
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Jesus is not a Cynic
Imagine God coming into this world in the flesh to teach, to heal, to remind us of God's power and grace. And in the middle of trying to work with us to help us see this world as a place worth loving and caring for, working for healing, recovering, in the middle of that work, two people walk up to him and go “Yeah, but are you a Republican or a Democrat? Which side are you on?” Seems a little petty in that case, doesn’t it?
Oct 11, 2020 |
This Work is About Joy
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
This Work is About Joy
But what I want us to remember is that when it comes to racial justice healing and reconciliation, like all real justice and all real healing and reconciliation, when it comes to this, God is doing the work anyway. The question is not, “Will God destroy racism and make things right?” That's not the question. The question is. “Will we join with God in that work?” That's the actual question. When it comes to the work of love and healing in the world, when it comes to reconciliation, the question for the Christian, the question for the Church is not, “Is God even here doing it?” Our question is, “Can we recognize the powerful presence of God?” And “Will we roll up our sleeves and join in the work?”
Oct 04, 2020 |
A New Way of Living
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
A New Way of Living
"...it turns them violent and their violence is turned towards God. But that violence comes from that sense that God is getting in the way of their lives. That belonged to them, on their terms and in their ways. Their insistence, their radical insistence, that their life belongs only to them and their property belongs only to them and the world belongs just to them and will be made in their image turns them so violent and makes them so blind that when Jesus himself shows up, when the son of God, and in the parable the son of the vineyard owner, shows up they kill him. We don't even recognize God when God is in our midst because we're too busy protecting ourselves and our things and our identities and our sense of the way things are supposed to be."
Sep 27, 2020 |
Challenging Worldly Authority
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
Challenging Worldly Authority
"In our humanity sometimes we stubbornly resist before we go forward. At other times we fail to follow through. It's our human inclination at times to hold to the status quo, protect our turf. It's our human condition to not always get things right. So, how do we, in our lives, understand and experience authority, earthly authority, and God's authority? How do we understand and discern what's in play? How do we recognize the way of righteousness? And walk that way?"
Sep 20, 2020 |
Here To Do The Work
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Here To Do The Work
"I don’t know what the outcome of our work will be. In terms of, will I produce the right amount of justice, freedom, and peace? Will I personally participate in the work enough that I’ve earned my status as Christian, as Beloved? But the gospel today tells me to get rid of that fear. To drop my judgment. To cease from trying to figure out who deserves what. And simply to roll up my sleeves while I have my breath in my lungs and do the work God has given me to do. Trusting that in that work I will be participating with you, participating with God in the work that needs to be done in this world. The work of love and healing, of freedom and peace, of justice and reconciliation. This is the work that God gives us to do and this is the work we participate with God in."
Sep 13, 2020 |
Why We Should Forgive
| The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane
Why We Should Forgive
"...we have very few chances in this life to help fellow sojourners experience heaven and offering forgiveness is one of the most direct ways to bring God to others. We forgive because we have been forgiven. Mercy flows from God to help us heal a broken world. Reconciliation, possible, even after many years of estrangement and kindness is amplified when humility and generosity of spirit direct and rule our hearts."
Sep 06, 2020 |
A Shared Life
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
A Shared Life
"The Christian life is a shared life. The Christian life is summed up in Paul’s words today, love one another. This is the fulfilling of the commandment. When I first was freed by those words I thought, “That’s it? That’s all it will take? Fantastic! I’m in.” I had no idea what I was getting myself into." To make love for one another the fulfilling of our commandments from God is to give ourselves work for a lifetime.
Aug 30, 2020 |
How Quickly Things Change
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
How Quickly Things Change
"We are so very human. We can do our part as we are able, but we can't do more than that. Ultimately it is in God's hands, but we are called to do what we are able to do. Just as Peter will show us again and again, there are moments of overwhelming joy and moments of deep despair as we live our lives and as we seek to follow Jesus. It is our human condition. Our worlds change sometimes very suddenly. We continue to need to learn and grow. And despite all of the unpredictable and very predictable concerns in our larger world we know the Holy Spirit is with us we continue to seek to walk in Christ’s love. We love and are loved every step of the way."
Aug 23, 2020 |
Two Kinds of Remembering
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Two Kinds of Remembering
"And when Peter says. 'You are the Messiah, the son of the living God', he is remembering the promise of God, the rock from which he was hewn and the quarry from which he was dug. He is remembering Abraham and Sarah. He is remembering the promise that God has made. But he is not just saying you're the person who reminds us of those things. He is saying you are the living embodiment of our deliverance. You are the one who will draw us all into a place of deeper love and understanding of God, that you will reconcile us to the one who made us, and you will indeed reconcile us to each other. This is the promise of God's Messiah. and so there are two kinds of remembering even here. The memory of what God may have meant or could have been or what was once. But also the deeper sense of remembering, which is the living today and acting into the reality of what we know to be true about God."
Aug 16, 2020 |
Disappointing Jesus
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Disappointing Jesus
"There's something we have the capacity to overlook in this story because of the disappointing nature of our interaction with Jesus today. It's the amount of transformation that occurs in this reading. It's the magnificent, powerful amount of change for good, for love, for healing that is happening. The movement towards justice and reconciliation that is occurring all throughout the reading we hear today. We're so attentive to disappointment that we're not acknowledging the powerful transformation that is present."
Aug 03, 2020 |
Broken Little Pieces
| The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane
Broken Little Pieces
"From today's gospel lesson we learn that when we believe we
have something to offer we find that there is more than enough for everyone. Not
only enough but twelve leftover baskets full of all the little broken pieces. Broken
little pieces like us, gathered together, and taken to feed the next place of
hunger. "
Jul 26, 2020 |
The One Thing
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
The One Thing
"What is the one thing? That's a question that can challenge us at many times in our lives. Sometimes even daily in our lives. What is the one thing most important? The thing that we are called to do. The thing that gives our life meaning. What is the one thing you're willing to live and die for?"
Jul 19, 2020 |
Side by Side
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Side by Side
"'No, you'll tear up some of the wheat, too.’ Which either means that God’s helpers are a little overzealous and are going to screw it up. Or, more likely, that there are times when the wheat and the weeds are indistinguishable. That they grow up side by side. That in our life, while we are waiting for this time of perfect justice and while we are even seeking to work for this time of perfect justice, are lived experience is one where the good and the evil are side by side. And not only that, but where we don’t actually always know which is which."
