In her stewardship letter this year, Kate reminded us that many Christ Churchers throughout history have laid various cornerstones around this property and embarked on many renovation projects, not knowing who all would benefit from those efforts down the line. And now it’s our turn. We are standing on our own Mt. Pisgah, with a stunning view of a renewed physical plant and the good and holy work that is possible within and because of it. But none of us will get to hang around long enough to see all of that good and holy work. We completed this project for us and for future generations. We took the long and wide view.
Read MorePray like Moses, boldly and a little fiercely, “Lord, show us your glory.” And then look up. Look at the person beside you. Look across the tables in Parke Hall on a Wednesday night. The glory you’re seeking may already be sitting right there.
Read MoreIt turns out that idolatry is at its heart a problem of patience. That is the insight I learned from another French philosopher, this time a contemporary who lived nearly four centuries after Pascal. In his lectures on hospitality, Jacques Derrida, no doubt puffing on his famous pipe, spoke to a group of students gathered in a Parisian lecture hall. He said this: “Not knowing how to wait is idolatry, it is to produce from oneself what one wants to allow to come.”
Read MoreThe new trees are in. The grounds look beautiful. And this Sunday's parable asks an uncomfortable question: when you've worked this hard on something, how do you remember it isn't yours?
Read MoreThe repentance Berry taught was certainly not the altar call variety, the sinner’s prayer from the front of the church. It was much more biblical than that. What reading Berry called me toward was much closer to the full meaning of repentance in scripture.
Read MoreAs often happens, God’s action matches the intensity of the need. This is no small problem, and no small miracle would solve it. In a true watershed moment in the story of God and God’s people, God literally rains down bread for the starving people to eat. This is the perfect answer to their prayer, the simplest, easiest solution fathomable. And when they see this heavenly bread appear before them, they respond by quoting my niece: “mmm…but what is it?”
Read MoreJudgment comes to those who refuse to accept a world of grace, and in some sense, that judgment is of our own making. When we insist on keeping score, our ledger of the wrongs done by and to us becomes the pointless torture it always has been.
Read MoreAs we look ahead to a new season of ministry, may we be inspired by Peter's faith, a faith that doubts and stumbles at times but always follows Jesus. May we also hold on to the best of what those early Episcopalians started at Christ Church, and pass it on to those who will come after us.
Read MoreI do not think the Church’s work of binding and loosing is about clutching and throwing away, either people or empires. I think it is the careful work of unlearning, untethering ourselves and our world from empires and reconnecting our hearts, strand by single strand, with the heart of God.
Read MoreThe Canaanite woman shows us what holy audacity looks like. It isn't arrogance, and it isn't just insisting on getting your way. It's the audacity to believe that God's mercy is bigger than the boundaries we've drawn around it. It's the courage to keep asking, and to refuse to believe that anyone is beyond the reach of God's love.
Read MoreOur passage from Genesis today is a foundational story for our faith community. Jacob wrestling with the unknown man and being given the name Israel is one of the most researched in all of scripture, in part because of the setting of this holy wrestling match. You may have noticed that the place name is spelled two different ways in two adjacent verses: Penuel and Peniel. Although our scriptures are rife with misprints and redactions, both intentional and unintentional, the Peniel/Penuel situation is probably not the result of something so singular or perfunctory. Instead, it has to do with the varied and dynamic ways that communities tell their stories.
Read MoreIn the attention economy, everything is organized around algorithms, reels, viral videos, and outrage. Which is why today's Gospel can feel, at first, like a bit of a letdown. "The kingdom of heaven is like...a mustard seed. A little yeast mixed into flour. Treasure buried in a field. A pearl. A fishing net full of fish.” Really, Jesus?
Read MoreHere is what my oak trees have helped me understand. Conflict can make communities stronger. Tree roots may compete for water and nutrients, and sometimes branches will die, but even so, their chances of survival and of thriving increase tenfold when they’re together. It is the same with families, and it is the same in communities of faith.
Read More“it is not time that heals us, but other people. Or, for Petunia and Spruce, other rabbits.” It turns out that rabbits knew something all along that God has been teaching us from the beginning: we are created for communion—with God, and with one another.
Read More“He’s not a tame lion.” That is the phrase that came to mind after I read our selection from the Matthew’s gospel for this Sunday. The Chronicles of Narnia is a Christian allegory, and playing off the old phrase, the Lion of Judah, Aslan is clearly its Christ-figure. What Lewis says of Aslan, he means of Jesus. And though we often try to domesticate Jesus, making him a nice, comfortable religious teacher, a grace-filled auxiliary to our ordinary lives, passages like our Gospel today help us remember the truth: Jesus is no tame lion, and though he is good, he is dangerous.
Read MoreBut the messengers of God, ever stoic and succinct, are not deterred by the chaos. They deliver their message with all seriousness. After all, it’s the salvation of the world they’re helping to arrange. I find it encouraging that they do not call out Abraham’s ineptitude or indulge Sarah’s suspicion. What we find uncanny and unlikely, God takes very seriously.
Read MoreThe mercy Jesus calls us to is not a feeling. It is a direction, a posture — toward the person at the edge of the crowd, toward the one kept at arm's length, toward the grief everyone else is politely stepping around. Mercy will always insist on belonging.
Read MoreWhen it comes to God, our explanations can quickly go awry, and this is nowhere more true than in the our doctrine of the Trinity, which we celebrate this Sunday.
Read MoreSo we know that waiting is holy, and that signs of the Spirit can be found all kinds of places. But in our global, digital age, it feels like signs are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We don’t expect something dramatic like speaking in tongues, and yet we are inundated with dramatic news all day every day. The disciples recognized the sign they’d been waiting for to start their new ministry in the world. For those of us still waiting for a sign of the way the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, how can we recognize it when it comes?
Read MoreEvery once in a while, Scripture slows down enough for us to glimpse the ordinary pace of spiritual life.
Read More