Blessings and Woes: A Sermon on Luke’s Beatitudes for Epiphany 6C
These words are too easily put in service to the Empire rather than the work of liberation.
These words are too easily put in service to the Empire rather than the work of liberation.
The problem is that most of us do not alter our roads home after we encounter Empire; we just continue on as if nothing happened.
Advent 3 is the perfect time to repent of our addiction to Empire.
The choice remains ours. Do we seek to be the body and blood of Christ or do continue to pretend we don’t know why our congregations are getting smaller and smaller? Jesus went where the vulnerable people were. We expend so much effort to keep our buildings and our worship exactly as they have been in the memory of our oldest members. What has this got to do with being bread for the hungry and forgiveness for the broken?
Jesus said some weird stuff and the end of John 6 is the top of the list. Here Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood to gain eternal life. It’s baffling even when we don’t take scripture literally. It’s hard to know what Jesus really intended here. Yes, it can be a foreshadowing of the Passover meal to come. Yet, I think he meant more than the eucharistic sharing of bread and cup. I suspect that all this weirdness about eating flesh and drinking blood has to do with how we live, a metaphor for embodying all that Jesus did and taught. Is this any less weird? Maybe not…
Just because Jesus and the disciples seldom achieved time alone for rest and renewal, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t heed Jesus’ direction. My intention is to take better care of my whole self and not wait until my body protests with extreme fatigue before finding rest. Imagine how the church and the world might change if we made rest and renewal priorities for ourselves and all those around us. If we paid a living wage for all jobs so people could take paid time off… If we had universal healthcare so everyone could have their physical and mental health needs met… If we made social security and disability payments above poverty…
Last night I had a dream about rowing through marshlands with a from seminary, and as often happens we were in our early 20s not our mid 50s. The marsh was familiar in the dream, though no place I have ever been.
in a Roman stronghold, You asked your first disciples a seemingly simple questionyet You asked them to put their lives on the line for You their answers could be, should be treasonous to the ears of the Empire Who do you say that I am? a worthy question, even now, especially nowwe live in another Empire … Read More
Given the current political climate in the U.S., I’ve been thinking a lot about temptation and how Christians tend to trivialize it. Jesus wasn’t tempted by small things when he was in the wilderness. It wasn’t a question of eating an extra cookie or skipping his time at the gym or engaging in dubious sexual … Read More
Choosing life is not simple, easy, or natural for most of us. Well, there is the drive to stay alive. However, that is not the same as choosing life. Moses was pretty clear that choosing life often means choosing the hard road, the way that is not self-focused. On the brink of entering into the … Read More