Sermons

If on the Fourth Sunday of Advent and then again at Christmas we usually hear about Mary, this year we hear about Joseph. And while there is much we could say about Joseph, the lectionary, by the passages it places alongside today’s reading from Matthew, wants us to see something else.

Whether you like to watch Duck Dynasty or Downton Abbey, whether your television tastes are Ozark or Outer Banks, whether you like Star Trek or Star Wars, we all like a sequel; we all like to know what happens next...

For some the answer is simple: because any act of sexual relations outside marriage is intrinsically wrong, what she did was wrong. For others, the case is not so straightforward...

Luke’s account of the crucifixion that we just heard is different from the other evangelists’ accounts. For example in Luke (and only in Luke) “the people” (and not just the soldiers or the scribes and Pharisees, but “the people”) “stood by, watching.” In Luke (and only in Luke) Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

Her hawk always came back—but each time letting the hawk go risked that the hawk would not return and risked rekindling in that sense of “holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer...