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Imagine if someone told you that next year Thanksgiving would be different. It would happen sometime in 2026, but you wouldn’t know the exact date, time, or even who the guests would be. How would you prepare? How could you plan for such an event? After all, food has a shelf life, and anyone who has cooked a turkey knows it doesn’t thaw overnight. Preparation is essential.
by the Rt. Rev. Craig Loya Watch the sermon recording on YouTube.
The destruction of evil can become more than a mere distraction. The destruction of evil can become an idol. When we stare too long at the evil being done, we might unconsciously become so obsessed with destruction, that we forget God’s Present Continuous creation.
Jesus’ answer points to the Sadducees’ lack of imagination, what it could mean to live in a world unafraid of death. What would that world look like? Can you imagine it? Jesus isn’t telling us that such a world wouldn’t have marriage. He’s telling us that such a world would not have systems that keep people stuck, trapped, or captive. Such a world would allow us to imagine who we truly are, to become even more fully who God created us to be, without fear or shame.
These beatitudes from today’s gospel in Luke are more real, tangible and down to earth as they focus on real life issues of being poor, hungry, or deeply saddened by life. It is interesting that we never make beautiful posters, carvings or artwork out of the corresponding Woes, or what some call curses, found in Luke which come right after the beautiful often-quoted Blesseds.
the Rev. Phillip Romine
“To turn away from worshipping the death-dealing idol of the Second Amendment and its anti-liturgies of gun violence requires a complete re-evaluation of our values. To turn away from cracked cisterns that hold no water, and to turn back to God, the fountain of living water, requires a complete change of heart. “
“What languages and cultures saturate your daily life? Who made your shoes? Who picked your coffee beans? What are the untold origins of the music you love? Racist, xenophobic, Christian Nationalism will fail. God loves diversity.”
“The sort of acknowledgment of Jesus Christ for which Monica prayed for her son speaks directly to the situation in which we find ourselves today, on this fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, and that acknowledging Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord in this particular way is something that we need, rather desperately in fact, in our world today.”
“The more we try to make exclusive distinctions between us and them, the more God makes differing bodies bridges between them and us. Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are the sacramental sites of God’s bridge-building in our very bodies.”
“In the garden that morning, Mary Magdalen, alone, eyes full of tears, thought she met the gardener, only to be surprised into joy when she recognized it was Jesus. I imagine she caught him in an embrace, that they twirled in amongst the flowers, to the songs of the early birds and the rhythms of the insects buzzing. And Jesus told her, do not hold onto me. This was a dance of abandon, a body resurrected and a whole world went free, unrestrained, unafraid, unabashedly itself as it was meant to be.”
“This Great Vigil of Easter removes Empire’s fears, erasures, and stone-cold-heartedness and replaces God’s holy, loving, and liberating spirit within our hearts of flesh. Christ’s love fills us so fully that we too come out of Empire’s tombs.”
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