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From December 24, 2006 Immediately preceding today's encounter between maiden Mary and her mature cousin, Elizabeth, the angel Gabriel has shared with Mary news nothing could ever prepare her for. So beautiful is Mary's spirit, so strong is her soul, so pure is her heart that God has invited Mary to help in fulfilling God's greatest promise: the gift of the Messiah. It's a magnificent moment, the one Gabriel and Mary shared. But even more
magnificent is the way God, working through Gabriel, patiently waited for Mary
to consent to being the mother of the Messiah. But that's a sermon for another
day, another Advent. From December 17, 2006 Not long ago I heard this confession from a man of faith. During the months of December when he was a little boy, he said, he would often lock himself in the bathroom to practice smiling. Not that he didn't know how. It's just that he wanted to be sure that come
Christmas morning he was prepared. When it came time to open his presents,
his family needed him to be happy. From December 10, 2006 Maybe it's his unconventional clothing. Maybe it's his diet; locusts and honey are unusual fare. Maybe it's the passionate glint in John's eyes or that raspy voice of his. I'm not sure. But whenever John's doing the preaching I want one of the pews in the back. Even if he is one of God's main men. John unnerves me. Partly because we're so unalike. He's rugged, strong in spirit
and a hard-core wilderness man. He's an in-your-face kind of guy. From December 3, 2006 "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken." Excuse me. What's going on? Isn't today the first Sunday of Advent? What's this with the
fainting and the sense of foreboding? Where is our familiar angel Gabriel? Where is our
taken-by-surprise peasant girl, Mary? Why aren't we beginning at the beginning? From November 12, 2006
"How about we stop at the mall on the way home. Anything you want, I want you to have." What girlfriend wouldn't rejoice at those words? What
girlfriend wouldn't want her sweetie to take her on
a stroll through the aisles of places like Neiman Marcus
or Sacs Fifth Avenue where her every wish was his credit
card command?
From November 5, 2006 Paul Mattil. Barbara Kropp. Jacob Karsch. George Rock. Elizabetha Lenhart. William Nagel. These men and women are Christ's saints. Ours, too. With others of like mind and open
hearts, they were led by the Spirit to give birth to this church in August 1874. Their
efforts were borne of confident hope when Paducah and indeed the whole nation was
struggling economically. From October 15, 2006 A young man acquires an enormous tract of land. Undeveloped, it is fertile and every time he looks out on it, his heart sings. Wild and wonderful, the young man has a particular vision for it. So he slowly begins clearing his land of growth. When he done, he hauls the grandest of the felled trees to the
sawmill where they are transformed into fence posts and lumber.
Then he returns to his land and proceeds to build a home that looks
out over the rolling hills that gleam with promise. From
October 8, 2006 It's one of those moments movie directors love. A moment in which the past and the present come together to have us, the audience, understand that our protagonists are stand on a threshold. A threshold that, once crossed, changes their world forever. Of course we are more than observers to those potent
moments. We have thresholds, our own occasions of the
past and present binding together as we look out over
what awaits us. From
October 1, 2006 Shortly after moving to Utah, I accompanied a parishioner to the hospital while she underwent a procedure. While I waited in the hall, I could hear wild laughter in the exam room. What was so funny, I wondered. Suddenly the door flew open and in the threshold stood
the nurse; she was grinning from ear to ear. "So you're the
new Winkel!" the nurse exclaimed, shaking my hand. "Mrs.
Jones just told me you were here. You won't believe
this but you and I are related. We share the same great-grandparents!" From September 24, 2006 Your phone rings. It's the president of the community college. Would you be willing to teach a course? You see, the president tells you quickly, the school has just signed a contract with the Chinese government and come spring the campus will host 25 students. Along with language courses and classes exploring
American culture, the college intends to offer an elective
course in Christianity. You are the perfect instructor, the
president insists. From September17, 2006 Easter has come. But right now only heaven knows.
When the women arrive on the scene early that Sunday
morning, all they know is that their beloved Jesus
was crucified, taken down, and entombed. All the women
know is that their Jesus is dead. As dead as the hope
he had ignited in them. From
September 10, 2006 Five years ago tomorrow a phone call interrupted my
morning routine. Had I heard? It was a parishioner
on the line. Remembering that I did not own a television,
he was calling to tell me what he was certain I did
not know: an airliner had just crashed into one of
New York City's World Trade Towers. From September 3, 2006 On the Navajo Nation, when a girl reaches puberty an ancient ritual is held. Kinaalda, it's called. An intense five-day ceremony, it tests a girl's physical fortitude, her mental strength, and her spiritual resolve. At the end of those arduous days and nights, the girl
is gone. In her place stands a woman, one the whole
community takes great delight in celebrating. From August 27, 2006 Put on the whole armor of God, the church in Ephesus hears. Put on the whole armor of God. Thumbing through a Christian catalogue, I once came
across a play set for budding believers. Clearly it
was inspired by today's passage. From August 20, 2006 The best way to understand how you were parented is to become a parent yourself. Or, in my case, spend time with children. Dear friends once asked me to watch their children
and I was only too happy to comply. Both kids were
ferociously active and the older one seemed entirely
undaunted by gravity. Prone to wild leaps off the backyard
jungle gym, I was sure the boy would wind up with a
broken arm before the first hour was up. From
August 13, 2006 Traveling by car and need to feed the family on the
cheap? Here's an idea - put a foil wrapped chicken
under the hood. That's what inventive mother
Diane Thomas did. She even went on national television
with that novel plan. Grinning into the camera, she
said if you drove 70-75 miles per hour by lunchtime
you could serve up a feast at some roadside picnic
table. From
August 6, 2006 We missed the miracle, you and I. Last week in John's gospel Jesus took a young boy's loaves and two dried fish, held them up to God in thanks, and then moved slowly across a mountainside full of people sharing what had just been shared with him. You know what happened. By the time Jesus finished,
not only was every belly in the crowd full but there
was even food left over. From
July 30, 2006 In Thursday's yoga class here at the church, Tim introduced us to a simple practice, one that I invite you to take part in this morning from your place in the pews. It's wonderfully restorative, takes no time at all to master, and is something you can do when you're stopped at a red light or are in line at Kroger. Let's try for a moment or two what Tim taught on Thursday.
We're just going to do two things: breathe and pay
attention. So if you would, simply take a slow, gentle
breath. Good. And then when your lungs are full, see
if you can't take in just a little bit more air. Don't
exhale just yet; hold that breath for a moment. From
July 23, 2006 At the conference I attended in Albuquerque recently, each table had a centerpiece. Unlike those at weddings or banquets, these were meant not for decoration but for provocation; that is, they were intended to get us thinking. Set in the middle of every table was a shallow terra
cotta dish filled with sand. In that sand rested a
length of barbed wire, a silent and steely reminder
of our desert border to the south. A border separating
two countries with two very different realities. From
July 16, 2006 Every so often a minister writes a sermon, one she can hardly wait to share, and then she goes home, turns on the news, and discovers that the human family has taken a dangerous turn. It is then that she must decide whether she will gloss over or ignore reality or prepare an entirely new message, one that seeks a conversation between current events and faith. This was just the case Thursday. I crafted a sermon
I imagined fit for a king, one that after news of fresh
warfare in the Middle East simply did not seem fitting. From
June 25, 2006 "Let us go across to the other side," Jesus says at the end of a long day. By "other side" he means the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, the other side where those other people, the Gentiles, the pagans live. The other side - that's where Jesus intends to go. Leave it to Jesus to want to move on. He's rarely
interested in staying put. Read the gospels and you'll
see just how he operates; he's forever saying his good-byes
and heading out for the next adventure. And when he
goes, he almost always takes his disciples along. From
June 18, 2006 We live in an age in which bigger is better. It's not enough to order a value meal at the local fast food place; now it needs super-sizing. Humvees, McMansions, megachurches, Sam's club-sized packages of paper towels. American consumers love living large. Conventional wisdom says bigger is better. But Jesus,
the man who saw through the eyes of his heavenly father,
Jesus thought otherwise. And he taught otherwise. Something
as small as a grain of mustard, he said, something
as insignificant as a miniscule seed can lead on to
the wild growth of God's kingdom. Like his heavenly
father, Jesus appreciated smallness. In fact he trusted
it. From
June 11, 2006 Summer was over and school was back in session. And Anita Ward wasn't the same girl she had been three months before. You couldn't tell by looking, though. You needed Anita to explain. To understand how Anita was different, why she was
different, you needed her to tell you about Hume Lake
church camp. About how the counselors were so good
at what they did that they made you want Jesus more
than anything else in the world. From
June 4, 2006 (Pentecost) Happy Breath-day! Happy Pentecost! Happy birthing day, Church! Today is our our day for remembering. Remembering how
God drew in a deeply loving breath, a profoundly loving
breath, and then blew that Spirit-breath into an earnest
assembly of Christ's followers. From May 21, 2006 Reldon Heaps. Orvil Minchey. Verbena Fox. Rayola Keeler. I love unusual names. In fact, I collect them. When I lived on the Navajo Reservation,
I kept a notebook of surnames like Manygoats, Yellowhair,
Greyeyes, Peaches--names that often pointed to
what distinguished a family. A sturdy herd, perhaps.
Or an orchard known for its sweet fruit. From May 14, 2006 I had a roommate whose past included a
fair amount of partying. Trading stories one evening
after dinner, she told me how years before, long before
she got her life straightened out, she had staggered
home after hours of rowdiness out on the town. Rather
than go directly to bed to sleep off the effects of
her late night, she decided that she would have just
one more beer and then turn in. From April 30, 2006 Been there, done that. If you haven't ever used that phrase, certainly you've heard it. It's a popular way to say we've moved on from something. Maybe
that something taught us a lesson. Maybe it gave us
some new perspective. Maybe it even changed us. Whatever
it was, however it touched us, to say "been there,
done that" means that experience now rests securely
in the past. From April 23, 2006 If you watch the Food Network faithfully like I do, then what I am about to say is old new. Tonight a star is born! Tonight we find out which culinary wizard is going to get his own cooking show. With only two contestants left standing, the winner
might be the off-the-hook spiky-haired Guy Fieri. But
it could just as easily be the easy-going but delightfully
sassy Reggie Southerland. Eight o'clock tonight can't
come soon enough for this curios cat. From April 16, 2006 (Easter) Life is probably round. You heard me; life is probably round. Now don't go thinkin' this is something I just made up. And no, it's not a variation on the old cliché, "What goes around comes around." Life is probably round. I remembered these
words as I prayed earlier this holy week. They took
me by surprise and took me back twenty years. All the
way back to a different lifetime, my university career.
From April 16, 2006 (Easter
Sunrise Service) A parcel appeared in the mailbox two months back. I wonder what this could be, I said to myself excited to find something besides the usual bills and junk. No ordinary package, someone had taken a set of colored markers and with wild enthusiasm had drawn all over it--bright balloons, a cake with candles, butterflies and flowers and a cat peering out from behind them. "Happy Birthday, Karen" it shouted, in
case I needed a clue. From April 2, 2006 A number of years ago I cam across a brochure advertising nutritional supplements. Across the top in bright bold writing it asked: Would you like to lose weight while you sleep? Would you like to lose weight while you sleep? I answer
with a question of my own: Who wouldn't? From March
26, 2006 Have you ever moved? Packing and then unpacking a home
full of possessions can be an exhausting undertaking.
But not always. Sometimes the two halves of moving are
so far apart in time that opening boxes is anything
but a chore. From March 19, 2006 Actions, they say,
speak louder than words. Actions speak louder than
words. Every wall in the
sanctuary that could be glass was. And for good reason.
Like an amphitheatre, the sanctuary pitched slightly
downward so that each parishioner could have an
unobstructed view of sky and the striking expanse below.
From March 12, 2006 From March 5, 2006 From March 2, 2006 From February 12,
2006 He had a name once. And a life, as well. Maybe he made his living as a potter, transforming lumps of clay into pots so airy and beautiful they took people's breath away. Maybe he was a storyteller so gifted that even weeks later listeners would swear they had seen rather than heard. Maybe he had had the great good fortune to marry the apple of his eye and become the father of four strong sons. He had a name. And a life he had done something with.
But when his skin grew scaly, everything changed.
"Leper. Leper." he heard them call him. From January
22, 2006 From January
15, 2006 |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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