A Positively Poetic Priest

"I saw Eternity the other night,   Like a great ring of pure and endless light,   All calm, as it was bright;   And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,   Driv’n by the spheres   Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world   And all her train were hurl’d.   The doting lover in his quaintest strain   Did there complain;   Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,   Wit’s sour delights,   With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,   Yet his dear treasure   All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour   Upon a flow’r.   The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,   Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow,   He did not stay, nor go;   Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl   Upon his soul,   And clouds of crying witnesses without   Pursued him with one shout.   Yet digg’d the mole, and ...

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Second Sunday of Easter BCP 224) Jesus greets his disciples after the resurrection with peace and the Holy Spirit. He comes to stand among them, which would have felt very familiar to the disciples, yet after the Passion, death, and Resurrection, would have been very different! This time instead of teaching or parables, Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit. The text says, Jesus breathed on them the Holy Spirit. Throughout the scriptures, there is a correlation between breath and the Spirit of God. God speaks out the Word, God breathes life into the first humans, God breathes new life into the dry bones in the valley with Ezekiel...

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Easter Sunday III BCP 222) The real focal point of Holy Week is the story that takes place over Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday night/Sunday morning. In the Christian tradition, the three days are called the Triduum, or the Paschal Triduum. The services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil in the prayer book are functionally all part of the same service, without any dismissals or opening rites between the opening on Maundy Thursday and the dismissal at the end of the Easter Vigil. Many ask how what seems like four days can be called "three days," but the tradition is based on...

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP 219) As the official title for this coming Sunday shows, this coming Sunday is a Sunday with multiple parts. We celebrate Palm Sunday with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and we listen to the story of Jesus' Passion in the dramatic reading of the Gospel story. Palm Sunday starts the Holy Week commemorations and celebrations, when we walk with Christ the way of the cross, towards death and ultimately resurrection. Every year we come to this Sunday with mixed feelings. Lent always seems to go by quickly, even though forty days se...

Moses was not a man with a plan. Estranged first from his family of origin, then from his adopted family, he accidentally found a new life  sheep herding as part of his wife's family. We see him today (and I love this description) "beyond the wilderness" at Horeb, the mountain of God. We tend to think of the wilderness as  out there, and here Moses is wandering around beyond the wilderness. He is way out there. Now we tend to think of Moses as this great leader. He was. But before he was a great leader of the Israelites, he was  an adopted son who didn't speak so well, who murdered a man, and ran away from home. Thus how he ended up way out there. He was an outlaw in Egypt, estranged from both his family of origin and his adopted family. He was not a man with grand plans. He was not anyone's hero. He was herding sheep around, living day to day  beyond the wilderness. Yet, God comes to him, out th...

How many of you have heard of Joel Osteen? He is a non-denominational Christian preacher in Texas.  His church, Lakewood, has about 52,000 regular attendees. They meet in what used to be the Houston Rockets basketball stadium. Joel Osteen has written numerous books about living your best life. However, there is a serious problem in his books and his theology. His books are all about saving yourself to live a better life. In our society, saving yourself is a big part of our jobs in our lives. We have to figure out to make our lives have meaning, we have to have our relationships and jobs and vocations all figured out so that we can be productive and reliable members of society. Especially in America, we have this understanding that we have to pull ourselves out of the mud, out of our trouble, out of the mire all on our own. Sometimes we even get mad when we are saved by someone else and not on our own. I've seen this many times. We want to sa...