A Positively Poetic Priest

The First Sunday After Christmas John 1:1-18 Eternal God, we thank you this day for blessing us with your presence through Jesus your Son; help us to accept the assurance you offer us of your presence and love throughout our entire lives. Amen. I love the beginning of the gospel according to John, the gospel passage for this morning. It is so beautiful and many layered. In seminary, when we studied John's gospel, we learned that John’s gospel always has many layers going on. (Like a cake, or an onion.) No passage is simply about one thing. We had a hand gesture we used any time we talked about John’s gospel. (Hand gesture. A little John's gospel dance.) In looking at the gospel passage this morning, we have to keep this many layered approach in mind. We are going to start behind the scenes of what we have heard this morning. Two of the great literary devices of storytelling and character development are birth narratives and foreshadowing, and the two almost always ...

Proper 28 B Eternal God, heavenly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, grant us grace to see death as an opportunity for resurrection and transformation, grant us courage to face the tearing down of walls and foundations and buildings. Help us to build anew that which sings your praises. Amen. Did you hear what the disciple said at the start of the gospel passage this morning?  "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" After a long day of sitting in the Temple, listening to the scriptures and the teachings of the priests and Jesus, this is the intellectual brilliance that is chosen to be recorded. Look at the huge stones! Having been to Jerusalem last year, I cannot deny that they are huge stones. They are described in the Old Testament as being 8 to 10 cubits long - putting them between 12-15 ft long. And they were all quarried, moved, built together without any of today's technology. No cranes, no trucks, no lifts. They formed the foundation...

With the junction of performing my first baptism and the rain we have been experiencing in Houston lately, I've been thinking about the place of water in our lives. There are a lot of stories in the Bible that deal with water and the Thanksgiving over the Water prayer from the Episcopal baptism service in the BCP highlights a few of them: creation, the passage through the Red Sea, and Jesus' baptism. But there are many many more, fishing stories, storm stories, rain and floods, Noah, Jonah, Peter walking on water, Paul being shipwrecked, the list goes on. Water has a huge place in the biblical narrative. I'm a huge fan of the writings of Madeleine L'Engle and one of her children's novels is called Many Waters and its about Noah's family before the flood. But interestingly enough, the title is taken from a verse of scripture not in the Noah story of Genesis. Madeleine highlights a verse from the Song of Solomon: "Many waters cannot quench love neithe...

Proper 22 B 4 October 2015 Eternal God, heavenly Father, we are grateful for all the gifts you have given us, even when those gifts are seen as weakness, for in you weakness is turned to strength and darkness is turned to light, with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.  One of my coping mechanisms when I feel overwhelmed is to clear off a wide flat surface, my dining room table for instance, and put down all the things I feel overwhelmed about on it. I write sticky notes of what my worries are and I put them on the table as well. I spread everything out so that I can see it and find ways to move forward. As I was thinking about this morning, I got a little overwhelmed. So, I want you to envision a clean table with me.  First, today is St. Francis of Assisi day and later we will be blessing the pets of the parish. We will put a little statute of St. Francis on our table. Second, today is part of our stewardship campaign. Put that pledge card on the table. Third, to...

Eternal God, who calls to us through all the little things, help us to be sharers of your story, help us to follow and share bread crumb trails that point to you, through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Last fall, at our Parish Retreat, we had an activity called the Glow in the Dark Night Hike. I attached glow sticks to the trees and bushes along a circular path near our camp, so that our families could walk in the quiet darkness by following the glow sticks. In society, we have a way of describing this kind of path. Bread crumb trails. The trail is a guide to follow and every little marker is a moment along the way. It comes from the story of Hansel and Gretel. Once upon a time…the story begins, there were two children named Hansel and Gretel. While their fairy tale is rather grim, the pair is famous for their bread crumb trail. They leave a crumb trail for themselves so that they can find their way home as they wander in the woods. The bread crumb path doesn'...

28 July 2015 Proper 8B O God, the foundation of the world rests in you; grant us a firm foundation in all our relationships, encourage our hope and faith in you, and wrap us in your familial love, through the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Last summer I attended my cousin’s wedding. Now my cousin has unfortunately been very sick off and on most of her life. She has had normal illnesses, cancer, and some uncommon ones, like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. About every six months, she ends up being hospitalized for something. During the wedding, during the exchange of vows, her very soon to be husband started giggling. “For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, giggle… to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.” When he started giggling, we all started giggling. Someday we all hope that he will know what life with my cousin is like when she is healthy.  Good, loving relationships are healing. There is healing in relat...

21 June 2015 Proper 7B Heavenly Father, in whom darkness is light and the storms of life calm, help us to remember your presence in our daily lives, give us the peace that comes from knowing you are at work, and show us how we may shine with your grace, through your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.  We've all been through scary situations in life. Met with some scary people. Faced the unknown in ways we would rather not have done at all. Fisherman, in particular, seem to be a group that take risks. It might just be their large tails/tales, which always seem to get bigger after the fact. I am reminded of that movie, the Perfect Storm. Or even the Titanic. Being out on the sea is putting yourself into the unknown. We do not control the wind, the water, the waves, the sea, and all its power.  This last week, we had a little taste of this with the tropical storm that passed through. In some places it was worse than expected. In some places it was much better. We cannot ever know.  The...

31 May 2015 O God of infinite possibilities, you have revealed yourself in so many ways. Help us to see you in your work of recreating the world in love, justice, and peace, through your Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love to ask questions. When I went to college my father looked at me and said, “I’m so glad I can finally pay someone else to answer all your questions.” Apparently I asked him a few too many questions as a kid. We all know those children, the little ones that wander around asking why every time you say something. After only a little while, How? And Why? Become the worst two words in the history of the English language.  Some questions come about simply through curiosity. We want to know how or why something is the way it is. Some are simply practical. What time should we meet? Where would you like to meet? What do you need from the store? Some are more culturally or politically influenced. Since moving to Texas, the rate at which I have bee...

28 May 2015 O Eternal God, who helps us move from one place in our lives to another, bless our graduates this day as they move forward into a new place in their lives. Grant to all of us the knowledge that we can trust you to be with us wherever we go, through your holy Name we pray. Amen.  There is a book called, All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It is a book of essays, sermons, and stories. One of the essays takes lessons we all learn in kindergarten and applies them to grown up life. One of those lessons is, “Hold hands and stick together.” Most of us know this rule under the guise of the Buddy system. For many of us in the room, the buddy system is a natural part of our day to day lives. Each of us has to work together with the other students in our classes or other adults on our teams to safely complete our projects. A great example is last week's Olympic Day or chapel buddies. Our younger students each had an older student as their...

God of the vineyard, you always stand ready to prune the branches in each of us that have withered and are useless. You clip, trim, snip and cut back till we have more healthy growth. May we bloom and blossom, precious to our true vine, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen (preachingtip.com) Merry May to you all! May is always a month of changes. The end of the school year, the end of the church program year. The beginning of summer break. Up north it was usually the month we planted vegetables. As a child helping my mom in the garden, I would get very excited about the new spouts and shoots as the plants started growing. One thing I didn't understand was the reason we would cut certain plants back after they just started growing. It seemed mean almost, to cut them off when they had just started growing.  However, my mom taught me about pruning.  Pruning is the specific remova...

O God of peace, you bring tranquility into our conflicted lives. You raised Jesus from the still tomb; yet we continue to be entombed behind the closed locked doors of our fear. Open wide our doors and windows to the fresh air of new life. As Jesus showed his disciples his hands and feet, may we show ours to those waiting for our love. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen   Shalom aleichem. Assalam alaykum. Peace be with you.   What do you think of when you think about peace? Lack of war? Lack of stress? I would like you to close your eyes for a moment think about your favorite place to relax. Remind yourself of how you feel when you are there. The happiness, the undisturbed feeling. The beach, the mountains, the lake. The vacation home, the smells, the wind in your hair, let your muscles go for a moment ... relax   Now if you'll rejoin me and return to this room.   Was that peac...

I recently wrote an article for the Pilgrim, a newsletter for friends of St. George's College in Jerusalem for those in Australia, New Zealand, and the other Oceanic Islands. It is a reflection on my experience of the land of Israel, having grown up learning about it, wanting to visit and then getting to see it for the first time in my life. If you're interested, the article is here .

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." No, wait, wrong story. "In the beginning, God created." Yes, but that's not tonight's story. "In the beginning the word was with God and the word was God. And the word was made flesh and lived among us." Yes, that is the story we are telling. But, hold on a second, let's go back to the first one. It would seem rather unfortunate to be angry about existence, but many people are angry about their existence. Their lives are not how they would like them to be. For many us, truly there are things about our lives that make us very angry. Or things that we wish wasn't true. We wish that no one we knew had cancer. We wish that war was not as prevalent as it is. We wish that political fights did not strip people of the dignity and acceptance that we might have had. We live in a world where police have to tell parents their ...

Blank black space it almost consumes the eye daring images to appear and leaving imprints in the memory I wallow in the emptiness feeling grief in waves of silence there is nothing, nothing nothing it speaks all is naught and for naught goes I don't believe miracles of miracles transforms our inner knowledge breathe in the blank black space breathe in the nothingness of mind breathe in the lack of emptiness breathe out the unspoken, the unknown, the hope of marauding dawn

A poem for Holy Week the lover cries the divine spark glows consuming and empowering identifying, locating, mystifying the concepts are never reached the symbols are encircling being outward and visible despite the lack of color defining love and hunger beyond the deceptive intelligence our senses let us know when what is myst is found

"The Almighty Lord, who is a strong tower to all who put their trust in him, to whom all things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bow and obey: Be now and evermore your defense, and make you know and feel that the only Name under heaven given for health and salvation is the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen." (BOS) “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” A very curious statement. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, a leader among the Pharisees. They are having a discussion about who Jesus is, because Nicodemus knows that no one could do the things that Jesus is doing without being from God, but he cannot quite believe that Jesus is from God. Jesus is trying to help him understand and uses the scriptural story from Numbers to illustrate. The way to make the parallel between the story from Numbers and Jesus’ own story goes like this: The people’s relationship ...

15 February 2015 Transfiguration Sunday Eternal God, you dazzle us on the mountaintop with the brilliance of your glow. You bring light into our otherwise dark lives. At first we think we are blinded by your brightness, but you lead us down from the mountain. We pray that you may transform our very eyes, transformed eyes to be able to see you shining through everyone we meet. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.  One of the major events on my college campus each year is what is called the Trashion Show . The title comes from the combination of trash and fashion. And it is what it sounds like, a show for people to style the fashion outfits they have made out of trash and recyclables. Like that well known saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Bubble wrap hats, plastic bags braided into skirts, cardboard tank tops. If you watched this year's Grammy...