Proper 28(33)
26th Sunday after Pentecost
Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie
Today’s homily, like most of my homilies, is not merely to preach to you but to call myself to account. It is part of my ongoing aim to preach a message of hope in these times, when the life of our planet and peace in our world are under threat.
From the Center for Prophetic Imagination, working to live in a world where all walls of alienation are torn down and all people live justly with each other, with the land, and with the Spirit of Life. Sign up HERE to receive their weekly email updates!
Usually, we talk about the Risen Christ around Easter. But it is perhaps more fitting to explore the significance of the Resurrection on a day like today, the day after the election, when our collective imagination has been transfixed by party politics and we begin to ask “now what?”
Perhaps the juxtaposition between electoral politics and the Resurrection of Jesus seems jarring. Bear with me. Continue reading “When Will We Rise?”
the gold loses its lustre
candlelight yields
a warm reflection
but these are
sacred and ordinary things
fabric, candleholders, cross
they aren’t imbued with any
special strength of their own
how then shall I love You?
the dust motes suspended
in light from the window
they are golden too
and the fine
sunlit hairs of my arms
they are golden too
let me love You on
the ordinary and extraordinary days
let me love You in
ordinary and extraordinary ways
let me love You
Comments on this week’s Gospel text (Mark 12:38-44) from Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (1988), the commentary from Ched Myers, celebrating 30 years of prophetic utterance.
The last episode in the temple is a story of a widow being impoverished by her obligations to the temple cultus (12:41-44). Long mishandled as a quaint vignette about the superior piety of the poor, Wright has shown that Jesus’ words should be seen “as a downright disapproval and not as an approbation”:
The story does not provide a pious contrast to the conduct of the scribes in the preceding section (as is the customary view); rather it provides a further illustration of the ills of official devotion. Jesus’ saying is not a penetrating insight on the measuring of gifts; it is a lament….Jesus condemns the value system that motivates her action, and he condemns the people who conditioned her to do it.
By Tommy Airey, a homily for Day House, a four-decade Catholic Worker experiment wedged between casinos and stadiums a stone’s throw from downtown Detroit
I am new to the traditions of Celtic Samhain and Christian All Saints. I grew up in the world of white suburban Evangelical Christianity. I attended a private Christian school that was part of the movement sparked a decade earlier as a response to the Civil Rights Movement and the racial integration instituted by the Supreme Court (and resisted by Governors who were enabled by Presidents). My pastors and teachers taught me that Catholics were going to hell and that Halloween was the devil’s holiday. Continue reading “Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone”
Proper 27(32) B
25th Sunday after Pentecost
By Dr. Oz Cole-Arnal (far left in photo), former professor emeritus at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary
I was visiting my oldest son Bill and his partner Darlene when I heard the awful news of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I felt gut-punched and burst into tears. With so much hatred in the world, with the “othering” of all God’s vulnerable—Jews, blacks, women, Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ– reaching new heights of murderous invective and hate as the wave of neo-Fascism arising throughout the western democracies, this attack in Squirrel Hill struck me exceedingly close to home. I am an ex-American from Western Pennsylvania, roughly an hour by auto to Pittsburgh, yet the emotions involve a deeper gut-wrenching connection than the thirty-mile jaunt by car to that city. Continue reading “Hidden Beasts”
By Ken & Nancy Hastings Sehested
We thank you, God, for water.
By it you give life to plants,
Animals, and all humankind.
We thank you that in the beginning
your Spirit of creation moved over
the face of the waters. Continue reading “Water of life: A baptismal prayer”
30 years in and Ched Myers’ Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (1988) is more relevant than ever. We’ve got four more Sundays to celebrate it! This week’s commentary homes in on Mark 12:28-34.
The man’s question concerning the “first of all the commandments” is a common topic of rabbinic discussion, but could also be interpreted as yet another attempt to get Jesus to reveal his own political commitments. Jesus’ answer at first glance seems cautious in its orthodoxy: he quotes from the Shema (Dt 6:4f), with minor changes to the LXX text. Suddenly, however, he adds a citation of Leviticus 19:18 about obligation to neighbor, and concludes that “No other command is greater than these.” Continue reading “Orthodoxy is not Enough”
From the mind and heart of Anne Lamott (Facebook 10.20.18):
Every so often, I mention a book I’ve always thought about writing, called All The People I Still Hate: A Christian Perspective. Half the people responding roar with laughter and say, “I’d read that,” and half are sort of horrified, by either the word “hate” or “Christian.”
You’re not supposed to hate, because hate is ugly and diminishes the soul of the hater. But if I were to be honest. I’d admit that I could still write the book, about some of our leaders and one really special ex-boyfriend. But I got the miracle. Continue reading “To Reduce My Crazed Fever Dream Hatred of Certain People”
By 
Radical Discipleship 