A Positively Poetic Priest

If I asked you all to imagine a green hill with a blue sky with some small white puffy clouds on it, how many of you would see the Microsoft Windows background screen which was so popular for decades? It is reportedly one of the most widely known photographs ever taken it is now titled Bliss, originally titled Bucolic Green Hills bought from National Geography photographer Charles O'Rear it depicts a green hill and blue sky with a few white clouds on it. It was taken on the Sonoma Napa county line in California in 1996. The hill was in a resting stage between different vintages of wine grapes at the time and the story goes, O'Rear was driving to visit his girlfriend after a storm earlier in the day and saw the scene at the perfect moment. He put it up on a photo sharing website from where Microsoft bought it to use as their Windows background image. It is somewhat ironic to me, in an age of technology as more and more of spend hours staring at screens that most of us have at so...

 (sit down please in sign language) While I was in college a couple of my friends took American Sign Language to fulfill their humanities requirement. As in studying any language, they delighted in learning new words and culture. In particular, they greatly enjoyed one practice their teacher suggested for remembering vocabulary and learning how to put words together: sign singing. Singing in sign language relies heavily on expressive face and hand movement in order to differentiate it from regular speech. Quickly all of their ASL study sessions became in essence sign karaoke. They would get together and sing in ASL. It was a sight to behold. They were all sign singing the same songs together but they were also all very individualistic in their expressive style. In the passage from Philippians we heard this morning, we hear an interruption of Paul in his own writing. "At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow... every tongue confess him, King of Glory now..." This part of the...

  What do you have faith in? Now I know the parables are good today, And I'm not going to talk about them Because one of the most basic things about religion is faith. You can blame St. Paul for today's sermon. All religions require faith. Faith is the belief in things not seen. In some ways, all the ideals we aspire to love, justice, charity, hope they are the bedrock on which any religion is created, including some things we don't think of as religion, but could be construed that way, are things we cannot see. We can't see justice, certainly these days we don't see a lot of evidence for it. We can't see equality or freedom or peace because they are ways of talking about systems in which everyone belongs and feels comfortable being themselves and we know we have not achieved that kind of world. Anyway, without faith, there is no religion no Christianity, no Judaism, no Islam, no Jainism, no pantheism. In the passage from Paul to the Romans, he writes, "Now...

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 8 BCP 230) If you've ever read through Paul's seminal letter to the Romans, you'll know he put his mind to work writing it. Paul uses every trick and device of reason and scripture to appeal to the new Christians living in Rome. He uses his great reasoning skills to bring to fruit some of the best theology we have from the Bible. He outlines faith in Christ and begins the Church's understanding of Christology, he outlines justification by faith and God's work of salvation through Christ.  Paul didn't have tradition or the Church to fall back on when he started writing his letters...

Many of you have heard of the 1800's theologian Soren Kierkegaard. He was a philosopher theologian in the country of Denmark where the designated national church, the Lutheran Church, was like many other national churches.  Everyone belonged and claimed it, but only a small percentage really went to church. Going to Church in Denmark at the time was seen as a social obligation and in many ways Kierkegaard criticized the church because  the national church attitude kept people from fully converting to be real followers of Jesus. Kierkegaard used to regularly walk the streets,  talking to strangers and neighbors alike arguing with whomever would start a conversation with him. One of his ideas was that you should be able to tell who is a Christian just by the way they walk down the street. Perhaps the idea that you could tell a Christian  by the way they walk down the street is a little extreme, but I can understand his thought pro...

Have you ever known a person who was so staunch in their position about something that only an act of God would make them change their mind, and perhaps not even that? Change, especially change of the heart, is not easy. For example,  The position of the early church was that: The Holy Spirit is at work in those who are baptized. And the understanding was that the Holy Spirit was ONLY at work in those who are baptized. (Unfortunately, though this position has changed,  many people still believe this way.) People who were baptized and went to church were the special ones. The one who knew God and could interact with God. No one else could get near God, no one else was working with the Holy Spirit. If you wanted to access God, you had to go find God in a church. Many changes have happened throughout the centuries the world of the first century church was extremely different than the world of the twenty first century church yet...

2/8/18 Joy Joy: (talking to herself) Yes, Joy? Joy: You'll be in charge of the console, keeping Riley happy all day long. And may I add I love your dress, it's adorable. [Joy begins to happily twirl around] Joy: Oh, This ol' thing? Thank you so much, I love the way it twirls... - Disney Pixar's Inside Out Joy is deeper than happiness. Joy is a deep seated calm emotion which underlies other emotions and moods throughout the day. Its a way of living in gratitude and relationship with God. Happiness comes and goes throughout our lives, but joy endures, despite hardships. Joy is the foundation which allows people to be content, to thrive, to be pleasant even when bad things are happening in their lives. You can find the word joy over three hundred times in the English NRSV of the Bible. From the beginning to the end, joy is present throughout the scriptures. People sing with joy, people dance in joy, people enjoy the fruits of their labor, God blesses...