Sermons on Spiritual Life (Page 29)

The Light of Hope

Each day on my way to work I get to have alone time with God. And, one of my daily prayers is a verse from Psalm 51, which reads: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Today’s gospel story is Mark’s account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry following His baptism in the River Jordan. Immediately preceding the story, Jesus has just called Peter, Andrew, James and John from their boats to…

Pageantry and passion

There are at least two ways of approaching Scripture. I’m going to loosely categorize them as the Engineer’s way and the English Major’s way. The hypothetical engineer wants to know the facts of the situation and how these fit with other known facts; the English Major is more interested in metaphoric layers of symbolism in the passage. This morning’s reading is especially troubling to the engineer. There are more unanswered questions than there are certainties with this narrative. Where did…

All Saints Day

   “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I sometimes wonder what it means to be proud. Am I proud of who I am? Is that okay? And why? Did I have anything to do with it? What have I done to take pride in? Upon pondering these things I find myself thinking that I’m proud to be a child of God, but I can’t take credit for that. I can say I’m proud…

Entirely Fire

After the last few weeks when we have heard parables of violence and exclusion, it’s something of a relief to get to the two great commandments, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ And ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ For most of us this is the center of Jesus’ teaching. But I wonder whether that is right. Jesus himself says, “On these two commandments…

What is Caesar’s?

In this morning’s gospel reading we hear an attempt by the religious leaders to trap Jesus into saying something that will get him into trouble with the Roman authorities, and probably with the people as well. Paying taxes may be unpopular today but in Jesus time it was much more so. Taxes were collected by unscrupulous tax collectors who made their living by the tax they pocketed, and the money they passed on went to support the Roman emperor and…

Life in Death

Today’s parable comes from the final section of teaching material in Matthew’s gospel. It’s in a section that, had he used subtitles, Matthew might have called “Authority.” Jesus is already in Jerusalem, his triumphal entry on the donkey just happened and the religious leaders are doing everything they can to trap him and to diminish his authority in the sight of the people. It’s a plan that’s not going so well. So Jesus tells a very pointed story. The owner…