By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
On May 21, 2018, 16 people were arrested in Michigan as part of the Poor People’s Campaign 40 days of actions around the country. They blocked the entrances to the Department of Health and Human Services. It was a cry against the systemic racism so ingrained in our systems that claim to be supporting the poor. Continue reading
Deer tracks in the snow
The First Sunday of Advent, Year C
December 2, 2018
By The Rev. Marilyn Zehr
Luke 21: 25-36
So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Luke 21:31
The Kin-dom of God is near. It visits in the night like the spirit presence of the white-tailed deer. I go out early to search for fresh prints in the previous night’s early snows. Like the kin-dom of God, the deer are on the move. It’s rutting season. Their tracks tell me that the does and last year’s fawns move in groups. The lone tracks that cross these are the bucks seeking mates. I am not yet skilled or scent sensitive enough to notice the signs the bucks leave on branches to attract the does but I know it is so. When they mate the doe and buck “enact a ritual of motion, touch, sound and scent before coming together.” (p. 14, All Creation Waits, by Gail Boss and illust. by David G. Klein, 2016) All is now pregnant possibility unfolding just beyond my vision in the night. All I see of their restless urgency are the tracks in the morning snow.
Just a quick reminder to readers, we will be bringing our online store down on December 1. It has been a gift to send out packages these past couple of weeks all around the country plus Canada and Australia. If you still plan to order, please do so before Saturday.
Sermon B Proper 29
“Christ the King”
Preached at the Church of the Incarnation, Ann Arbor, MI,
November 25, 2018
By Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Psalm 93
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
I do love the church’s liturgical year, setting the rhythms of our prayer, our community life – and, on occasion, our public witness and action. Even when it’s is appropriated by the culture – inverted, inflated, commodified, corrupted – it still stands primarily as a counter rhythm, a different drummer to which we move. Continue reading
By Joyce Hollyday, a facilitator of the upcoming “Heart and Hearth: A Writing Retreat for Women.”
During Advent many years ago, I preached in the morning chapel service at a Pennsylvania college. The chaplain’s five-year-old son, Kyle, had memorized the Gospel of Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, and he was eager to recite it at lunch. He was flawless until he got to the part about the angels announcing to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace!” Forgetting the last phrase, Kyle concentrated for a few moments. Then he confidently launched in again, enthusiastically attributing these words to the hovering heavenly host: “Glory to God in the highest…and I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!” Continue reading
Reign of Christ
Proper 29 (34) B
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8
By: Ron Berezan
I used to avoid apocalyptic scriptures like the plague. I’m beginning to rethink that.
For many years, I found the violent imagery, intense dualism and gnostic sounding anti-earth passages too hard to stomach. So I chose to ignore them – mostly. I’ll admit, there was always a tinge of guilty fascination, a bit like staring at an accident scene, even though I knew I really shouldn’t.
By Julia Jack-Scott
By Liza Neal
“Nuestros sueños no se detendrán incluso en la muerte.” Our dreams will not stop even in death.
These words are painted on the Mexico side of the Border Wall. It could have been carved on the Mayflower. Half the Pilgrims that traveled to the “new world” died. The rest would have died if not for the mercy of the Wampanoag, who were repaid with disease, indoctrination, and their leader’s head on a spike displayed next to the Pilgrims’ crops. Continue reading
