Category Archive

“I came to bring fire to the earth…” “Is not my word like fire and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?…” “Not peace, I tell you, but rather division!” On each side, we are certain, certain, that the hammer of righteousness belongs to us alone. These Gospel words about family conflict could be read as a teaching about priorities —a call, as Saint Benedict would say, to “prefer nothing to Christ.” But wait. Doesn’t Benedict also tell us to treat everyone as Christ? Isn’t love of neighbor—meaning love of everyone—one of Jesus’s core teachings? Can this same …

Genesis 15:1-6;  Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16; Luke 12-13:9   I imagine that many of us have taken one or another trip in the past few months, and found refreshment.  For those who will soon be traveling, I hope you do also! For whatever reason, in the whirl of packing and putting things in order before our own travel last month, our summer of 1992 came to mind. Over a few years’ discernment, I had hammered out a new position as pastoral associate of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with the retiring pastor, new bishop, and a feisty, quad-lingual group of 35 immigrant farmworkers and …

Genesis 18: 1-15; Colossians 1:15-28;   Luke 10:38-42 In 2020 Netflix released a drama series titled “The Queen’s Gambit,” a fictional story about a young American woman named Beth Harmon and the arc of her life as she became a chess champion who faced off against some of the best chess players in the country. In the series finale there was a climactic showdown in Moscow, Russia, where she confronted some of the world’s best chess players. During those matches, a commentator remarked: “The only unusual thing about Beth Harmon, really, is her sex. And even that is not unique in …

Some weeks ago, I was asked if I would offer the homily today:  the Feast of Saints Benedict and Scholastica.  In addition, I was told that we would be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Sr. Lynne Smith’s monastic profession and the 1st anniversary of her installation as prioress of our monastery.  The challenge and the honor were quite a shock at first.  The shock passed–well, somewhat–but a good deal of my anxiety has persisted over the intervening days.  I asked Sr. Lynne if there would be any special readings for this Sunday.  Like a good Benedictine, she said that we …

I simply have to begin today with an “honesty” warning because your homilist finds this Gospel passage to be very odd. It appears to be an amalgam of perhaps a few authentic words of Jesus mixed in with a whole bunch of strange, later additions which don’t even come close to sounding like anything the authentic Jesus of Nazareth might have said. Today’s reading comes in a whole section of Luke from the ninth to the nineteenth chapters which takes place on the journey to Jerusalem, though actually very little of the material demands the setting of a journey. Throughout …

“It’s funny how the nature of an object — let’s say a strawberry or a pair of socks — is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or as a commodity. The pair of wool socks that I buy at the store, red and gray striped, are warm and cozy. I might feel grateful for the sheep that made the wool and the worker who ran the knitting machine. I hope so. But I have no inherent obligation to those socks as a commodity, as private property. […] But what if those very …

I was texting with an old friend whose mother is a presbyterian minister and mentioned that I would be preaching today. “Well,” he responded, “mom’s advice for this Sunday has always been, ‘never preach on the Trinity.’” In my own reading and reflection preparing for today’s feast, I have come to appreciate the advice Theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber states the problem succinctly: Preachers dread this day because we see it as kind of a dry dusty theological topic after the exciting and earthy part of the liturgical year that came before it. It’s like there’s this raucous party of Easter and …

In his commentary on Luke’s gospel, New Testament scholar and former Anglican bishop N. T. Wright points out that when the angels announced Jesus’ birth, they claimed the titles of the emperor, Augustus Caesar, for Jesus. The baby lying in a manger in Bethlehem, not Augustus Caesar, is the world’s Savior, Lord and Peacemaker. This bold and treasonous declaration of the angels, Wright tells us, sets up a confrontation that runs throughout the whole gospel of Luke between the Commonwealth of God proclaimed by Jesus and the Empire of Caesar. In light of the stories that follow in Luke’s gospel, …

“Stand up, take your mat, and walk,” Jesus says to the man who has had his heart set on reaching the healing waters for years. For nearly 40 years this man has been ill, and perhaps the sense of frustration is noticeable in his benumbed response to the Christ who approaches him. If for some of you the story of the healing of this man at the Pool of Bethesda is not as familiar, here is a bit of background. The earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John don’t explain why the people who were blind, lame, and paralyzed were …

Back in the late 80s – yes, I am really old – I began a nearly three decades long involvement in a domestic and overseas service program called Volunteers in Mission or VIM. My very first experience was international, with an indigenous congregation in a small Panamanian frontier coastal town near the Costa Rican border. It was a dingy, dirty port town. I recall that we were warned not to swim at the beach which was polluted and littered with garbage and waste. We were a team of about twenty and we lived with various members of the congregation and …