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The good news is not simply that God calls. The good news is who and when Jesus calls. Jesus calls people others overlook. Jesus calls people who are not ready. Jesus calls people standing in the wilderness. And when Jesus calls, that is enough. Amen.

The Spirit is like water that fills both our planet and ourselves, a shared resource. It is a resource that we swim in, and clean in, and that we take into ourselves. The Spirit is like fire that crackles and pops, and turns sugar into caramel, unpredictable and wild and all-consuming. The Spirit is like…

Be kin, and be humble. The point isn’t that we have to know it all, we don’t have to explain the origins of suffering, to know the history, the facts, the diagnosis, the treatment plan. We don’t have to know it all, understand it all, justify it all. We don’t even have to experience it…

Rarely are we persecuted by our government or society for our religious beliefs, but many of us understand the kinds of hell that live in the space between the death of someone we love and the funeral; between the bad news in the doctor’s office and the first day of treatment; in the long months…

…in a society that divided people regularly—giving more and more to those had and withholding more and more from those who didn’t—this table, in and of itself, was a miracle. The church taught— the church teaches— that in this, in this meal where all are welcome, where all become equal, where no one eats alone, where we find a…

But we believe that this Easter joy is how we make sense of the world. We’re not waiting for the eternal disco to start dancing. We dance in the streets, in the kitchen, on the way to anywhere. We see the joy around us, we bear witness to it, we bring it with us, in…

The systems of our world require that some people live with too little because some are afraid that they might get too much. This is not by accident—it is by design. There are systems that depend on some people being underpaid, unseen, or excluded in order for others to feel more secure.  This is what…

We are living through an intense moment of fear and uncertainty. And most of us—most of us, but not all—enjoy a good deal of safety, even still. We are far from the earthshaking bombs. No unexploded missiles have become a startling feature of our children’s playground. Many of us enjoy the security of generations of…

Our happy exchange of death to life is an exchange of an ending for a beginning, and invitation to go with Jesus back to Galilee, back to the people who most need a word of life and grace and truth—back to our own neighbors and neighborhoods, proclaiming a radical word: surely this one is more than a king, this…

We come to this table—to bread and cup—not just to recall something long ago, but to enter the story. We come trusting that this story is still true for us today. In a morsel of bread and a sip of wine, we trust that God is present—in, with, and under these simple elements—and present among…

“Why have you abandoned me?” I confess, at the lowest points of my heart, it was this kind of cry that I was afraid to utter. Most often, I chose to ignore God entirely—whether it be God’s presence, or some God-shaped hole in my life—I just bricked up a wall of silence, so I wouldn’t…

We are called to unbind one another from whatever still holds us in the grave. We unbind when we forgive.  We unbind when we tell the truth.  We unbind when we walk with someone in their grief, not making it about us.  We unbind when we stand in solidarity with those who experience injustice.  And…

In his prayer for peace, Francis wrote, “O Lord, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.” In order to do that, we have to move ourselves—and our fear—from the center. We must let go of the…

… what about the stories we tell about other people? About the people we dislike and disagree with? I struggle to love those who I don’t think love other people well. When I hear someone advocate violence or demonize immigrants or malign trans people, when I hear someone speak in ways that are racist or…

That’s Jesus’s point when he talks about fasting in today’s gospel. It isn’t to be seen, it is to be re-oriented, re-directed, re-shaped, to have our hearts and minds re-tuned to God. Calhoun says, “This act of self-denial may not seem huge—it’s just a meal or a trip to the mall—but it brings us face…

So, past, present, future meet on this mountain to hear what is needed to speak truth to power, to hear what is needed to be faithful in the midst of trials, to live among God’s people well, and to be encouraged even in the face of fear, even the cross. Past, present, future meet on…

When Jesus says to people of the Judean countryside, you are the salt, you are the light, he is giving back to the people their own understanding of themselves as God’s beloved people. The image isn’t of a conquering nation that ultimately defeats its foes. It is an image of a people who understand themselves…

We read today the Beatitudes, these counter-cultural words of blessings, but today something about this text feels different. It feels different because we have seen their faces, these who Jesus calls blessed. They are our neighbors. We have seen them on the news, their likeness captured on one of the worst days of their lives….

The wilderness looks different for different people. Sometimes it is sand and hunger and exposure. Sometimes it is fear for your family’s safety, that drives you far from home. Sometimes it is telling the truth about who you are, knowing that truth may cost you safety, belonging, or love. Sometimes it is speaking out with…

Beloved, the news comes in fast and hot every day, and heartbreak with it. And it does weary us, when bad news piles upon bad news. Each of us is pulled in a thousand different directions every day as we live out our callings: parent, child, employee, friend, community member, voter, advocate, neighbor. Yet we are called,…

The rabbis set the marriageable age for women at 12 and men at just 13. While life expectancy was different then, and adolescence was very different then, families raised their children to be prepared for marriage by these ages. The reality is that this is very likely a story about a very, very young woman…

[Jesus] he is speaking to people who are afraid, people who cannot imagine what the morning will look like, people who cannot imagine what home is like anymore. When Isaiah talks about “the way,” the way is a highway for the people—all the people. Not the parade route for the conquering general, it is the…

…repentance—confession and forgiveness—calls to an end old ways of being in the world, calls to an end shame, and guilt, and self-justification, in favor of the justification of God, which makes possible the new creation: guided no longer by this rigid avoidance of sin, we’re free in Christ to serve one another, free in Christ…

This is the heart of God with us, that God who carries everything with us, who pays attention with us. So, this is what Jesus offers to Matthew’s community, and to us. Keep awake, he says. Oh, honey, you are here: so keep awake to your pain. Keep awake to your grief. Keep awake to…

…what if we believe that the end of time is God’s grace reconciling us to God and one another? What if we believe that the end of time looks like what Mary describes in her song at the beginning of Luke’s gospel: lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things, coming to our…