Category Archive

Luke 24:13-35 On the Road to Emmaus Audrey Hinger loves to tell a story about this Gospel reading. Some years ago one of our children’s ministry teachers was teaching this passage. After reading it, she asked the children how the disciples knew this stranger who had been walking, talking and eating with them was Jesus. One of the students who was only four or five at the time said right away, “The clue was in the bread.” That is the point, isn’t it? When Jesus sat at table with them, he took the bread, blessed, broke it and gave it …

Matthew 28:1-10 The angel at Jesus’ tomb announces: “Do not be afraid…. He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” The place to look for Jesus after his death and resurrection is not among the dead but in Galilee. Galilee is the place where Jesus lived out his ministry showing the reign of God in everyday life healing, feeding, teaching, showing compassion, acting for justice. Galilee, among the people, is where the Risen Jesus continues to bring about a new creation with and through us. Jesus …

We are here tonight to claim and celebrate our identity as a community of disciples beloved by Jesus. We’re not here as outcasts from any denomination, family, religious, social, political circle, or nation. And we are not here as a collection of individual believers, but a people actively listening, and serving one another in love.   For the young people among us, and anyone here this night for the first time, I would emphasize that this worship is not the Easter equivalent of a Christmas pageant. No live animals, no costumes, no auditions! There are only 2 roles, and each …

Palm Sunday April 13, 2014   ENTERING THE MOST SACRED TIME OF THE LITURGICAL YEAR   Today marks the beginning of the most meaningful and sacred time of the liturgical calendar:  Holy Week.   –         Holy Week—when we celebrate the ‘Paschal Mystery’—the pivot on which the rest of the year turns, the focus of our Christian lives.  And today, Palm Sunday, we are called on to declare our commitment to that Mystery, which means our commitment to this Jesus called the Christ.   –         So as we begin this Holy Week, if we’re going to pour out our hearts in …

Grief, Resurrection and Faith John 11: 1-45 By Colleen D. Hartung April 6, 2014 On Sunday nights, at 8 o’clock, if you do just a little channel surfing you will find that among your viewing choices is (1) a show called “Resurrection” that chronicles the mysterious return from the dead of several residents from a small town in Missouri, (2) another show called “Believe” that tells the story of a group of people trying to protect a little girl with a genetic mutation that gives her superhuman powers that she uses to accomplish random acts of kindness but that other …

  Sunday, March 30, 2014 The Story of Man Born Blind There is nothing quite so awkward, on a social level, as to arrive at the house of friend for a meal and to walk into the midst a family argument. It makes me feel tense, just to think about it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go to the dentist a have a root canal any day. And yet, that’s exactly what is happening in this as we enter into today’s Gospel. We are stepping into a bitter dispute that tore apart the tiny Christian community that …

March 5, 2013 Ash Wednesday Matt. 6: 1-6, 16-21 Thomas Keating, who re-introduced the contemporary church to the ancient practice of contemplative prayer, tells of his early years in a Trappist monastery. The setting is the 1940s, I believe in Massachusetts. His desire was to go the extra mile in his spiritual practices, demonstrating his zeal for God.  “When I entered the austere life of the monastery, fasting was held in honor….the symbol of fidelity in the monastery in those days was the perfect conformity to the rule…. Because I was in somewhat fragile health, I was rarely able to …

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time February 23, 2014   I.      AN IMPOSSIBLE COMMAND: TO BE AS HOLY AND AS PERFECT AS GOD   A.   I don’t know if any of you noticed, but the opening lines of our first reading and the closing lines of the third reading – one written centuries before the other – are really saying the same thing.  And what they are saying is something incredible for Christian ears, something that seems to contradict what Christians (and Jews) are usually taught about God and about humans: –       “You shall be holy, for I your God am …

Readings: ·      Micah: 6:1-8 ·      1 Corinthians 1:18-31 ·      Matthew:  5:1-12     It is good to be with all of you again this Sunday, to break bread and to share God’s Word together.  Gathering in this way gives us all such strength and wisdom to live our lives with compassion and wisdom.   Stories give us life.  I share a story with you that is pertinent to our readings today, in particular, the Gospel of the Beatitudes.   Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a marvelous Russian poet and writer who is well-known throughout the world.  In his autobiography he shares a …

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time   January 26, 2014   Isaiah 9: 1-4   1 Corinthians: 1: 10-18   Matthew 4: 12- 23           Zebedee   Along among the broken nets    he watched them go. His flesh,     now grown, but still his hope, not just       for those declining years of splicing rope         and spinning yarns among his peers, but for          that fragile continuity            the simple rightly see avenging death.             What father doesn’t long to have               his sons about him at the …