Lord, make us instruments of your peace: where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine One, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as … read
“Bringing Hope to Despair.” That’s a sermon title-ish rendition of today’s line in the Franciscan peace prayer we’re focusing on for Lent: “Where there is despair, let me sow hope.” The traditional way to set up this sermon would be to help you see the despair before making the case for hope. But do I … read
If you have ever wondered to yourself, “How can all this God stuff possibly be true?” then you have experienced doubt. If you have ever said to yourself, “Jesus is my Savior,” then you have experienced faith. And if you have ever echoed the words of the man whose child Jesus healed, “Lord, I believe; … read
Perhaps some of you, like me, were told when growing up that you couldn’t use the word hate. In my family, it was a little more specific: we couldn’t say we hated a person, as in “I hate my sister” or “I hate you.” So when I declared unequivocally that I hated canned peas, I … read
Happy Transfiguration Day! Is that not how we all greet this day?! The Transfiguration is odd. When Googling Transfiguration (it’s been a long winter with a lot of illness in my family, I’m using whatever tools I have to make sense of things now), the first image that I saw was a painting by Raphael. … read
We’re going to start with a simple question this morning. Why did Jesus come to earth? On second thought, not so simple a question! To answer the question, “Why did Jesus come?” has involved forests’ worth of paper, oceans’ worth of ink, countless hours in study and debate, and a few million theologians, Biblical scholars, … read