Category Archive

Holy Wisdom Monastery All Saints All Souls, November 3, 2024 Roberta Felker Isaiah 25:6-9; Revelation 21: 1-6a; John 11:32-44 Today, with faith communities across the world, we celebrate the feast of All Saints All Souls. We are invited to recall our membership in the Communion of Everyday Saints and the promise of God’s ultimate victory over loss, sorrow, and death.  In this morning’s reading from Isaiah, God hosts a feast for all people where every tear is wiped away and death itself is swallowed up—a vision echoed in Revelation, where a new heaven and a new earth reveal God’s intimate, …

SALVATION:  “LET ME SEE AGAIN” Revelation rather than Transaction Since we Christians call Jesus our Savior,  the question might also be posed as: How do you want me to save you?

Homily                      October 20, 2024                                                    Holy Wisdom Monastery Pam Shellberg                                                  Isaiah 53:4-12;  Hebrews 5:1-10;  Mark 10:35-45 Chapters 8, 9, and 10 of Mark’s gospel are its centerpiece containing three episodes in which Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to be arrested, tried, tortured, put to death, and then, after three days, will rise.  Jesus makes three predictions of his passion, the repetition alerting us to its ultimate significance. We’ve heard two of the passion predictions read in recent Sunday gospel readings, but the verses containing the third and final one were not included at …

In my teenage years, and a little beyond, I engaged in practical jokes and sometimes had those same jokes played on me. One of the more startling of these was mattress dumping, with the occupant still on the mattress. It may have been just a guy thing, but the people I hung with always thought it was hilarious. This section of Mark’s gospel has Jesus doing the equivalent of mattress dumping, except no one is laughing. Jesus tells his followers, “The last shall be first and the first, last.” He says that in various forms multiple times and offers illustrations …

THE TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME September 29, 2024 Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50 I want to begin this morning by dedicating this homily to a dearly loved departed friend who many of you knew:  Richard Schoenherr.  He died almost 30 years ago.  Richard and I spent an untold number of hours talking about many of the things I will be saying today.  I owe a great debt of gratitude to him.  I hear his voice often.  Most days, in the early morning, I take a slow prayer walk in Owen Park.  These walks are usually quiet, …

22nd Sun in Ordinary Time • Deut 4:1–2, 6–9 • James 1:17–27 • Mk 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23 • 9/1/24 My physical therapist says to do my exercises with a mirror. Though I resist, I know she’s right; without a visual check, I don’t always know when I’m practicing a habit that will cause pain down the road. In the words of Moshe Feldenkrais, “As we become aware of what we are doing in fact, and not what we say or think we are doing, the way to improvement is wide open to us.” I know this to be true; I …

Homily: 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time August 25, 2024 In understanding today’s gospel it seems to me that the word of the day is “scandal.” Jesus is teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum and makes an incredible claim: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me…whoever eats me will live because of me…the one who eats this bread will live forever.” These words cause unrest among the people who have been following Jesus through the countryside.  They begin to grumble among themselves.  Becoming aware of this, Jesus asks:  “Does this offend you?” Here I would suggest …

Pentecost 13, Ordinary 20B, Holy Wisdom Monastery August 18, 2024, Terry Larson John 6:51-58           Pam Shelburg was originally scheduled to be here today. But she’s concluding a fine vacation with her partner this weekend so she asked for someone to take her place….that’s me…I’m the substitute preacher. So I’ll use my opening line to students in my classes when I was a substitute teacher:  ‘Please behave.’ I spoke to Pam last week. She said if she were here she’s open her homily with a quote from Yogi Berra: ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’ Why would she use that …

God of Wilderness, Feed Us 1 Kings 19:4-8  Ephesians 4:25-5:2  Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51 Our Christian tradition is rich in stories of wandering in wilderness. The wilderness, as Old Testament and Hebrew scholar David Garber, Jr. writes, is a “liminal space during desperate times where God is encountered.” Now, when I read these stories of wilderness, I can’t personally help but think back to my own very few experiences of being in the wilderness. For those of you who know the ancient ruins of Petra, a Nabatean city carved into the rocks of the modern day Kingdom of Jordan, I …

18th Sun in Ordinary Time • Exodus 16:2–4, 9–15 • Eph 4:1–16 • John 6:24–35 • 8/4/24 Last week Jim spoke about bread for the journey. One of the risks of a journey is that it separates us from whatever sources of sustenance we had in the place we left behind. The Israelites in the wilderness, recalling the abundant meat and bread available in Egypt, were acutely aware of this. As I began the journey of writing this homily, not knowing where it would take me and fearful of getting stranded, I found myself snacking addictively on pita chips to …