Enormous changes at the last minute (or over a lifetime)
In coming among us, Jesus gives us a different way to respond, with love and with hope. Often, responding with love and hope is about as countercultural as one can get. There are ways that church is outside of culture, and there are ways that the church is created by God to transform culture. In either case, we cannot be church if we cannot stay together.
Choosing God
Choosing life calls us to stand with those on the margins whom no one really wants around. Choosing life calls us to stand with those who are in danger, and even to get in between them and those who would do them harm.
A place at the table
Worthiness is not as much about whether or not we are worthy as about the source of our worthiness. Worth does not come from what we do, the importance society confers upon us, or the number of affirmations we say in the mirror. Worthiness stems from our creatureliness, the fact that we are all made in the image of God, beloved by God.
Answering the Call: Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
Aidan perceived a need for the word of God to be offered in new ways beyond the shores of his comfortable island. The call surprised Aidan himself, and yet he ran with it. Like Aidan, we are in a season of standing on the shore of our island, ready to push off to travel to new shores and engage the world in new ways.
Not Peace but Division: A sermon by Kristle Delihanty
Jesus isn’t describing a nice and tidy faith. A faith that we bring home on Sunday and tuck back away for the week. He is showing the Kingdom of God like wildfire – a fire that refuses to be contained. A fire that burns away what can no longer stand.
The purse that never fails
What if the purse that doesn’t wear out is no purse at all? What is our unfailing treasure in heaven? It is not this building, this beautiful space that we love, and it is not our former glory. Our treasure is not our longing for more people or more resources. It is not our bank accounts or the tangible treasures we might keep at home or in a safe deposit box.
Formed in Christ
The Rich Fool is on his own, but formation in Christ rarely happens in a vacuum. It happens in community. Think about those nested matryoshka dolls.
Hope, Bread, Persistence, and the Coming Kingdom
Bread is much more than bread. It is rice, it is corn, it is everything that reminds us of God’s presence in creation and God’s providence in our lives. Give us this day our daily bread was a prayer for bread for the next day, and the day after that. Give us what we need on a daily basis to move through this earthly life you have given us. Not spoken here is our obligation to make sure that others have bread, as well.
Preparing the Banquet
The story is a dance between temporal and timeless, between Chronos and Kairos. When we are asked—as we often are when this story is read—do we identify more as Mary or as Martha? I’m guessing that most of us would say that we wish we could be Mary, but we are Martha. So when we decide that Mary is superior to Martha, what does that say about us? If we are to be bearers of Good News, we need to be kind to ourselves, not dis ourselves because we are more Martha than Mary.
Becoming Good Neighbors
And yet, your life is in their hands. Or their life is in yours. We can be too quick to judge those who differ from us, and worse, too quick to dismiss other humans in a way that compromises everyone’s dignity.