As I Have Loved You

You know what? I think "Doubting Thomas" gets a bad rap. If recognizing the resurrected Christ as the Jesus of Nazareth was a test, almost everyone failed. It’s almost comical. It’s like an Abbot and Costello movie. (If you are under the age of 25, ask your parents.) Mary of Magdala thought he was the gardener. And when she ran back to tell the apostles, they didn't believe her. "Doubting" Peter and "Doubting" John wanted to run and see for themselves. The men walking with Jesus on the road Read more [...]

I confess I have a love-hate relationship with laws and commandments. I suspect it’s probably true for many of us. We all appreciate the importance of laws. We understand why we need them, how they help us in society. There are probably moments that we are shaking our fist saying “there ought to be a law!” But on the other hand,  many of us wonder why we need so many laws; laws we don’t even know about and have to spend so much time trying to navigate around, finding the white space in between Read more [...]

Was very excited when I was asked to prepare a sermon for today. Who wouldn’t be? The 12th chapter of John is one of my favorites.  “I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness.” “For I came not to judge the world but to save it.” Beautiful stuff. So you can imagine my surprise as I realized listening just now that today’s gospel, in fact the 12th chapter of Luke  not John. That’s really too bad, because I had a really Read more [...]

My sermon today is actually the second in a series.  I don’t know how many of you heard the first one. So I thought I'd borrow a tried-and-true method to get all of us on the same page: The Downton Abbey theme music starts to play in background Previously on “Heavenly Treasure”.... “Our attachment to earthly treasure is the proverbial elephant in the room. We know it’s there but we’d like to ignore it. “One the reasons we get attached to earthly treasure is that we feel Read more [...]

Either this or that. Yes or No. Left  or Right. Conservative  or Liberal. Yankees or Red Sox. There is something within us that likes to make distinctions. It’s a lens we use frequently to order the world around us. It is also a lens we use when we listen to or read scripture.  “The parable today means this..” or “Jesus is saying that” This can be particularly true if it’s a story we relate to like today’s gospel. Here we have the story Martha working very Read more [...]

I love heroic stories, where the protagonist journeys along a difficult path, with adversity waiting at every turn. Stories like  Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.  They have an epic arc, usually starting humbly enough but building over time as the hero travels to the site of the climactic finale where good vanquishes evil. Now I confess that I also enjoy Downton Abbey but I frequently find myself wishing someone would pull out a sword and liven things up a bit. On Ash Wednesday, Read more [...]

We have all heard the axiom, “familiarity breeds contempt.” It’s from an old fable by Aesop. And I think we can all find examples of it in our lives, even more so if we replace “contempt” with something a little softer like boredom or indifference. Put another way, the more familiar we become with someone, the more likely we are to believe we have “figured them out.” It can happen in nearly any setting. At work. We have our boss figured out. Before we even say anything, we can guess Read more [...]