I was seated at the head table. Also seated at the head table was a woman who served as their maid of honor. I walked over to where she was sitting and introduced myself. She looked up at me and said, “I know who you are! Don’t you know me?” I looked at her and said, “Of course I do.” God forgive me, I lied through my teeth.
Touch is so very important to our well-being. In this time of social distancing, we have lost that gift. We crave that gift. But it is no longer safe to touch… to offer a handshake, a hand on a shoulder, a friendly embrace. When will this all end? When can we touch again?
This year’s Easter celebration is not like those we have known. The sanctuaries that are normally full on this festive day are painfully empty. The choir lofts usually filled with singers standing shoulder to shoulder are empty and silent. This year, we might get the closest taste we have had yet to what the first Easter was like.
Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Over the years, I have sat with, talked to, ministered to, prayed with, and walked with hundreds of Marys and Marthas: in hospital rooms, in hospice facilities, in private homes, and in funeral homes. It never gets any easier. It is a most difficult place to be.
I don’t care how well you think you know the Good Shepherd of Psalm Twenty-Three, you don’t know him until you’ve realized that he is a pursuer.
We know she is a woman… the first strike against her. We also know she is a Samaritan—we are told this not once, but four times in this text—the second strike against her. And we know she has had five husbands, and the man she lives with now is not her husband. Strike three, and she’s out, at least according to society!
As a young teenager, my paternal grandmother, Helen Kovar Shuluga, left her home, parents, siblings, and extended family and boarded a ship for the great United States of America. She had no money, no ticket, a small suitcase of clothing, and the clothes on her back. She hid on the ship as a stowaway and was discovered after they set sail. She was ordered to cook in the ship’s kitchen to earn her way here. She never looked back. She never saw her parents or most of her family again.
When I was a youngster, Sundays were very different than the other six days of the week. After church and Sunday School, the big meal was at 12:30, rather than supper time. We ate off the “good dishes” on Sunday. After dinner, we would all jump in the car for a leisurely afternoon drive. My father would just drive aimlessly through the country, admiring the scenery. Most often we would end up at my great-grandmother’s house where many of the extended family members gathered.
In today’s gospel reading, we have a blatant case of sharenting. It’s not enough for Jesus to have his shining moment with Moses and Elijah, but dear old Dad has to interrupt Jesus and his pals by bragging about his Son. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
It started very early in life… girls wear pink and boys wear blue. Baby dolls and strollers for girls and trucks and toy tools for boys. There were defined roles you were expected to play and fulfill. Young women would marry, have children, and stay at home. The man of the household was to be the bread winner and fix the car.
God is fed up with people who do the rituals, who go through the motions of their chosen religious faith, but who don’t let any of those ritual practices sink into their hearts and minds. They don’t let the rituals impact their lives.
The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with your spouse, children at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blatting the bad news from Bosnia, and to say “God is here, now, in this room, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon.” – Philip Simmons
Churches have been splitting since before the Great Schism of 1054, which led to the break in communion between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. A few centuries later, the Protestant Reformation led to further splintering. Today, the fracturing of the church continues, and some people joke that Christians have a strange approach to math: They actually multiply by division!
Writing a personal mission statement allows us to put our answer in a statement short enough that we can use it to explain our whole life to someone in a brief encounter on an elevator. Because, you know, people are always asking about our purpose in life while we’re on an elevator.
After years of attempting to have his name removed from church rolls and baptismal records, Mr. LeBouvier learned that this simply was not possible. He then decided to take the church to court. A magistrate found in his favor, but the church appealed. It was not possible to erase history, they argued, nor to deny that a sacred rite had taken place, vows and eternal declarations made.
I was a bit taken aback when a former church employee said to me, “You really are very socially awkward! I’m surprised at that, because when you are in the pulpit, you come alive.”
Studies show that singing to a yet-to-be-born child can have a profound influence on him or her. Studies have shown, for example, that fetuses can sense audio vibrations and rhythms early in pregnancy — so much so that the baby is able to recognize the parents’ voices right after birth. A song or a story can imprint a child’s mind even before he or she is born and can have a lasting influence.
When Bueno saw his family’s name mentioned in the local newspaper, he was not happy. In fact, he was downright devastated. He had spent nearly his whole life trying to escape his family and so far had succeeded; the last thing he wanted was to read an article with the headline “Denver’s Biggest Crime Family.”
Sorry. It’s the First Sunday of Advent and none of today’s texts are about you. None of this morning’s scripture panders to your exaggerated opinion of your moral and spiritual potency. There’s nothing in any of the scriptures for you to think, for you to feel, or for you to do. I know that makes you uncomfortable.
