The Book of Psalms includes some of the most wonderful poetry ever written. And today’s Psalm includes arguably the most beautifully poetic verse in all the psalms. The verse is this:
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has [God] removed our sins from us.
I’ve spent the last 12 days recovering from jaw surgery. During that time, I have felt so enfolded in love and care by the prayers of this congregation. I can’t thank you enough. I’ve also done a lot of praying recently myself; mostly prayer as pain management. Also, a lot of prayer for the state of the world, prayers for peace, prayers for the people of Ukraine and the courageous protesters in Russia. So I want to talk about prayer this morning, specifically when we feel the need to pray and what that says about who we think God is.
Continue reading “Seven Moments of Prayer”
There is a very silly scene in the very silly movie Life of Brian by Monty Python. Actually, the movie is fairly deep, but you have to dig through the silliness to find its depth. The movie follows Brian, a person unfortunate enough to have been born in the stable next to Jesus. In the silly scene near the beginning of the film, the camera pans away from Jesus speaking his famous Beatitudes; you know, blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, etc. The camera pans away from Jesus and settles on a group of people way at the back of the crowd, who are struggling to hear Jesus.
“What was that?” one man says.
“I think it was, ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers,’” another replies.
“What’s so special about the cheesemakers?” a third asks.
The first man responds, “Well, obviously, it’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.”
Continue reading “I Contain Multitudes”
Imagine with me the Apostle Peter, who is in Rome near the end of his life, thinking back on that day when he met Jesus by the lake of Gennesaret.
“He sounds like my kind of fellow,” I remember saying to a traveler at my stall, just days before I met Jesus in the flesh. The traveler was gossiping with the rest of my customers about the goings-on in his hometown of Nazareth. According to him, an angry mob nearly threw Jesus off a cliff for something he said in the synagogue. That was the first thing I heard about him. Like I said, my kind of fellow.
Continue reading “Catching People”
I spend a good amount of time every January attending to the operational and organizational side of the church as we develop a budget, analyze various metrics, review staff roles, and seek out new vestry members. I wouldn’t consider any of these activities to be in wheelhouse, so I find I have to attend to them in a very focused way.
This can cause a particular problem. I call it the January Problem. The January Problem is this: I can focus so carefully on the “what” and “who” and “how much” that it’s easy to lose focus on the “why.” So today, I’d like to extricate myself from the January Problem and focus on the “why” by talking about two interrelated concepts: love and mission.
Continue reading “Our Great “Why””
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my
heart be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
Many preachers begin each of their sermons with this verse from today’s psalm. I can hear my father’s voice in my head praying these words time and again as I grew up. He always pluralized the second half, saying, “The meditation of all our hearts.”
I’d like to talk about meditation today and invite you all into the practice that I began when I was on my sabbatical in 2019. I honestly cannot say where I’d be in the midst of all the anxieties and pressures and hardships and sorrows of the last two years without this practice of meditation.
Continue reading “The Meditation of My Heart”
One of my favorite songs was released the year after I was born. The song comes from U2’s 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire and bears the title “Pride (In the Name of Love).” In one of the verses, Bono sings:
Early morning, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.
U2 continues with the chorus: “In the name of love / What more in the name of love.” They repeat these words over and over again, astonished and overwhelmed by the lengths to which love calls us to go.
Continue reading “For the Common Good (with a lot of help from Dr. King)”
Every year on the Sunday after the Epiphany, we hear the story of Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan. The Gospel writer Luke skips the moment of the baptism, preferring instead to focus on what happens next. Jesus comes up out of the water, towels off his hair, and puts on his clothes. And then he starts praying. I’ve read this passage a hundred times and I’ve never noticed that Jesus is praying when we get to the part of the story Luke wants to tell. In my imagination, I see Jesus kneeling by himself on the riverbank, eyes closed, hands held palms up in his lap like a little bowl. His posture is that of someone who has just sat down in church and spends a quiet moment with God before the collective worship begins.
Continue reading “You are Mine, My Love, My Joy”
I didn’t preach yesterday, so in the time-honored tradition of TV shows trying to fill out their seasons in a low-budget way, here’s a clip show of the last ten years on WheretheWind.com. I chose one sermon from each year to highlight that was either extra meaningful to me, showed an evolution in my preaching, or was especially timely and important. May God bless you in this new year.
Continue reading “A Ten Year Sermon Clip Show”
Two and half years ago, I stood in a long line of pilgrims in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. As I inched forward I took in the beautiful mosaics being painstakingly recovered on the walls and floors. I tried to count the oil lamps and candles hanging above the altar. Ahead of me was a short set of stairs that bent away to the left under the sanctuary. This was my destination, along with the pilgrims from my group, not to mention the hundreds of others from other groups who had descended upon the Church of the Nativity that morning. Finally, I reached the top of the stairs. I had to duck to enter the low-ceilinged chamber. The pilgrims ahead of me shuffled along, each stopping for a brief moment to touch something on the floor. I, too, approached. There…there was the spot – marked by a gold many-pointed star. There was the spot (the Church remembers) where Jesus was born. I touched it like everyone else. And I felt…nothing.
Continue reading “The Stone Manger”
Where the Wind... 