Sermon: C 5 Lent 17 March 2013

Is 43: 16-21; Ps 126; Phil 3: 4b-14; JOHN 12: 1-8

Grant, O G*d, that our hearts may be fixed where true joys are to be found, through I X our Lord. AMEN.

Top o’ the morning to you, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day. It may seem odd to be deep in Lent and hear upbeat lessons. In today’s Gospel, Jesus does predict his death, saying Mary’s extravagant gift is for his burial, but this forewarning doesn’t bear the gloom of other predictions. Instead, in Mary and Martha’s dinner, we hear the promise of something new, fragrant, and remarkable. That’s the theme and tone of today’s readings: that promised change is both new and eternally wonderful. Not the Celtic northern sin and gloom outlook of Lent traditionally presented to us, leading to an almost morbid obsession with preparing for Good Friday, instead we hear genuine preparation for Easter.

Sermon: C The Epiphany Sunday 6 January 2013

Is 60:1-6; Ps 72:1-7, 10-14; Eph 3:1-12; MT 2:1-12

Lead us to your presence, O God, where we may see your glory face to face. 

AMEN.

“Those magic men, the Magi,

Some people call them wise

Or Oriental, even kings

Well anyway, those guys

They visited with Jesus

They sure enjoyed their stay

Then, warned in a dream of King Herod’s scheme

They went home by another way” Timothy Mayer and James Taylor’s freely adapted today’s Gospel here, while we also hear, “Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

Sermon: B 24 Pentecost 27 Proper 11 November 2012

Ruth 3: 1-5, 4: 13-17; Ps 127; Heb 9: 24-28; MARK 12: 38-44

On this Remembrance Day, For those who were killed in battle,

For those who gave up their lives to save others

For those who fought because they were forced to,

For those who died standing up for a just cause

For those who said war was wrong,

For those who tried to make the peace

For those who prayed when others had no time to pray

For those creatures who needlessly die

For those trees that needlessly are slaughtered

For all of mankind Let us quietly pray:

May [your] God hold them in peace/ May Love flow over the Earth and cleanse us all/ This day and for always. AMEN.

This is Marianne Griffin’s poem for Remembrance Day. I’ve been in England around this time several times recently, and in buying and wearing a poppy, I’ve mused about Remembrance, Armistice, or Veterans’ Day, our anti-war climate, and our virtual ignoring the 11th, whatever it’s called. This year, its observance gives many people a welcome recovery from politics, however we as individuals, a state, or nation, felt about the results. In having tomorrow off, not as a day off for voting, but to observe this occasion we’d rather omit, we also see the darkening chilling of our days. We also hear about the widow’s mite, her giving two coins, all she had, and know too stewardship is in the wind.

Meditation for Sunday, November 11th

“Unless the LORD builds the hours, their labor is in vain who build it.”

Oh hear now how the proud claim, “I built that!” —

smug in abundance, demanding of praise,

no credit to the carpenter,

anonymous hands bought and bruised to raise

temples of conceit on the habitat

of the wild, the poor, the stranger.

“Unless the LORD builds the house,

their labor is in vain who build it.”

The tests and triumphs of mere mortal rule,

at best, may imitate a discerned

intent of our one Creator,

at worst, displace eternal gifts un-earned

with fleeting fragile robes consumed as fuel

to warm bare greed’s known successor.