Tag: 2 Corinthians 6

The Imposition of Ashes

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Sermon for Wednesday, March 5, 2025 || Ash Wednesday || 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

In just a few minutes we will participate in a ritual that we do exactly once a year. On Ash Wednesday, we come to the altar rail, kneel like we do for Holy Communion, and receive the “imposition of ashes.” I will scrape two lines of soot on your foreheads, making the sign of the cross. And I will say, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Admittedly, this is a strange ritual, but its weirdness gives it power. Today’s service is one of the more memorable liturgies of the church year specifically because the imposition of ashes is so strange and potentially off-putting.

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God’s Divine Math

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Sermon for Sunday, June 20, 2021 || Proper 7B || 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

They say that when a couple has a second baby, their hearts expand to love the second just as much as the first. The love is not divided in half, so that the older child now only gets 50% (although from that child’s perspective it might feel that way). Somehow, using the exponential property of divine mathematics, love always expands to include every beloved. Leah and I did not have the opportunity to experience this second child expansion because our second was born about 30 seconds after our first. We got the double whammy, and, in the moment the nurses placed both babies in my arms for the first time, I could feel in my heart my ability to love expand. All of a sudden, I had all this extra love inside me and it started leaking down my cheeks. For those first few sleep-deprived days, I spent hours just staring into the tiny faces of the babies. They were the physical embodiment of my heart opening wider than I thought possible.

This is the moment in my life that I think of when I read our lesson today from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. After speaking of all the hardships he has had to endure to remain in relationship with the churches he has founded, Paul says: “We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return…open wide your hearts also.”

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A Wide Open Heart

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, June 24, 2018 || Proper 7B || 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

When I was a brand new priest, one of the biggest mistakes I made was comparing my vocation to other “professional” occupations. I made this mistake because I went to the same number of years of graduate school as a lawyer, and mine was a helping profession like a doctor. Your pastor is right up there with your surgeon or your litigator, I reasoned, and here are my credentials. It took a couple of years for me to learn this was a really foolish approach to pastoring. A mentor of mine pointed out the error in my thinking like this. He said, “People only go to surgeons when they need surgery or to lawyers when they’re in trouble. Don’t you want to walk with people every step of the way?” Continue reading “A Wide Open Heart” →