miltybc

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I'm sitting right here

The first Sunday of the month is Communion Sunday in our tradition, so my sermon ends at the Table, wandering first through the legacy of love that lets us all belong there. ____________________ One of the scenes that replays often around our house around mealtime, is Rachel my mother-in-law telling Ginger how good a cook I am and how much she enjoys the food. But she says it as though I’m not in…

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help me up

I have always been drawn to the story of Jesus’ encounter with a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years and I got to talk about it in my sermon this week. __________________________________ Our passage this morning tells an odd story. It’s odd because of where it takes place. In Jerusalem there was a human-constructed pool called Bethsaida. Both the Romans and the Greeks built baths:…

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what love looks like

We understand some words better when we tell stories. Here is my sermon for this week. ________________________ About fifteen years ago, when my parents were both still living, Ginger and I were in Texas seeing them as well as friends, which meant we did a good bit of driving. As we were going from Houston to San Antonio, I mentioned that we were nearing the town of Seguin, the self-proclaimed…

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we had hoped . . .

I veered from the lectionary this week to look at Jesus’ encounter with the two on the road to Emmaus, one of the stories I most love. ____________________________ One of my favorite things about reading scripture is coming across the gaps that remind us that we don’t have the whole story. We have talked about them often. We read a name we haven’t heard before or become aware of a relationship we…

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hand of kindness

This is my sermon for this week, based on one of my favorite stories in the gospels, which I came to see in a new light based on the way life has been crashing down around here lately. It was a Communion Sunday for us, so my sermon led us into the meal. I hope you find something that feeds you here. ___________________________ I have spent most of the last week driving back and forth to Yale New…

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get out of the room

My sermon this past Sunday had less to do with trying to explain Thomas and more to do with what lies beyond our fear. It’s a little site specific, since I was preaching before our congregation’s annual meeting, but I hope you find something here. __________________________ Over the past few months, I have become enamored of a South American animal called a capybara. It is the world’s largest…

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stone rollers

My sermon for this morning. ________________________ No one remembered exactly what happened. They knew the tomb was empty when those who came to anoint the body got there—but the list of exactly who went to the tomb with Mary Magdelene differs from gospel to gospel, though all four make it clear that it was the women who first learned that Jesus was resurrected. The men—the ones who get called…

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lenten journal: choosing life

choosing life when we moved to Connecticut almost a decade ago I had an idea to plant a tree each year as a way to mark time and to leave something growing when we left and so I planted two peach trees over two summers today I cut them down not because they were dead but because we also tell time by schnauzers and one who was not here when I planted the trees but has been here when the meager…

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lenten journal: ice age

ice age if you have to go out in winter ice is not your friend whether the white ridges or the translucent layer disguised as asphalt ice will take you down maybe that’s what they had in mind when it became the acronym for those who knock down doors and scour streets scraping people into oblivion it chills me to think that evil appreciates metaphor freezes me in my tracks to watch the hail of…

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lenten journal: mirror image

mirror image what is it about grief and loss that makes life feel as if the clouded glass through which we gaze carries the same caution as the passenger-side mirror: “objects may be closer than they appear” the old songs sing of crossing rivers and farther shores, of flying away like a bird freed from prison bars but life is so much more than a sentence we are meant for more than an escape as…

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lenten journal: living among the dead

living among the dead one church member stood during prayer time to mark five years since his wife died at coffee hour another said next Sunday will be two years since her husband died when I checked email I saw a request to help with a burial of who died last night and then at lunch Ginger told me that my spiritual director had died in her sleep those are just the ones I heard about today no…

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lenten journal: holy weak

holy weak 1. Jesus rode into town on a borrowed donkey not wanting to be king. we have a president who thinks he’s a king and is demanding a parade. one is not like the other. 2. to equate criticizing Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza with being antisemitic is the same as saying criticizing Trump for his actions is being anti-American. why are we scared to say so? 3. the divider-in-chief…

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lenten journal: rage room

rage room I was in a different city a few weeks back and saw a rage room a shop that invited you to come in a break things through the open door we saw drop cloths and a stack of sledgehammers as well as sheets of glass plates cusp and televisions stuff that would shatter once you paid your money you put on the coveralls and safety googles grabbed a hammer and started swinging as though…

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lenten journal: remember this

remember this this grab for power is an act of desperation it may seem measured calculated deliberate but look in their eyes and you can see fear behind all of the greed the damage is real but their frantic grasp for permanence is not nobody lasts forever despot or democrat history forgets us all we grieve and we leave we matter as matter as parts of the whole love handed down from one age to the…

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lenten journal: who counts

I preached about the prodigal son—well, mostly the older brother—today, a week late by the Lectionary Clock, but it felt like the right time to me. _________________________ Though we didn’t go back and read the verses that begin Luke 15 when Bev read our scripture, I want to do that now to remind us of the context for Jesus telling the three parables about being lost and found: Now the tax…

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lenten journal: gathering

gathering tomorrow two groups will gather on opposite ends or our town green the first will be a funeral for a gentle man who loved people and their pets well the second will be a rally of solidarity in the wake of all that is being destroyed in both cases we will gather not fully knowing why other than it matters the dead will not rise our grief will not end nothing will be solved and we won’t…

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lenten journal: honest answer

honest answer one of the traditions that comes with aging is most every nurse who checks me in for an appointment, no matter the doctor or the reason, asks “Do you feel safe at home?” the question is a part of a perfunctory list quickly-asked queries with expected answers they will expect to hear again next week when I go for a final follow-up for my implant surgery they ask the questions the way…