Year A; All Saints Sunday, November 1, 2020 Matthew 5:1-12 In elementary school, I could not take tests without panicking. I would instantly feel the anxiety of performing and forget everything I learned. Some people call that “choking.” Yes, I choked before I took a test. My mother shared this information with the teachers […]
Year A; FB; Proper 23; 10.11.2020 Philippians 4:1-9 Dawn was my sister’s friend for nearly 20 years. Marilyn, my sister and Dawn worked in business development for a non-profit hospice organization in San Diego. They were nurses. Dawn and her husband Jim always included Marilyn, who is single, in holiday dinners at their home. […]
Year A; Proper 20; 9.20.2020 Matthew 20:1-16 Last week, I attended a two-day course given electronically by the Racial Equity Institute. Thank you, James Ford for nominating me for this vigorous learning opportunity that instructed me in the power differential of race in our country. I studied data that is publicly available showing how […]
Year A; Proper 18; 9.6.2020 Romans 13:15-20; Matthew 18:15-20 During my time as assistant rector at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, I was befriended by a couple who were pleased to help me navigate small town life in North Carolina. John and I had just moved from […]
Year A; Proper 17; 8.30.2020 Romans 12:9-21 Good morning, friends! Good morning, saints! I had a very restful vacation, but I’m extremely glad to be back with you. Many of you know that I took my dog Sophie to stay at a cabin on Flanders Bay Down East for two weeks. The cabin was […]
Year A; Proper 10; 7.12.2020 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 A few years ago I joined some friends on a tour through Jordan. We visited the ruins of Petra and several ancient biblical sites as well as Roman ruins. Lots Cave and the road that the Nabatean Magi took to Petra were some of the sites […]
Year A; Proper 7; 6.21.2020 Genesis 21:18-21, Hagar’s Spirituality “Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?” We left off last week with these words, written in the Book of Genesis, said by YHWH, the God of Abraham. God seemed to lean over to say to Abraham after learning that Sarah would bear a son […]
Year A; FB.Proper 6; 6.14.2020 Matthew 9:35-10:23 Willie James Jennings begins his seminal theological work with a story about his mother Mary, whose grandmother was a freed South Carolina slave and a dirt farmer. Part of the migration north, Jennings’ family settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan where Mary worked the soil of her Michigan […]
Year A; Easter 6; 5.17.2020 John 14:15-21 Let us pray….. OK, God. This was kind of cute in the beginning. We joked early on in this pandemic “distancing” – parents joked about experiencing what teachers REALLY go through with their kids; there was the joke about the urgency of buying toilet paper when the meteor […]
Year A; 4 Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday, May 3, 2020 Psalm 23 A few years before my mother had the stroke that put her in a nursing home, she sat me down one day during a visit and handed me a folder. In it were a couple of her favorite childhood photos; darling photos of […]