A Positively Poetic Priest

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Third Sunday after the Epiphany BCP 215) Its never just one thing with God. Even the prayer for this coming Sunday asks us to answer Jesus' call and proclaim the Good News. It seems Jesus was telling the truth when he suggested that God wants all of us. Not just for us to do one thing here and there. God wants us to participate fully in God's kingdom, today and everyday. This coming Sunday is St. John's Annual Meeting. We will gather on Zoom at 9 am to listen and discuss the past, present, and future of St. John's life of ministry in Franklin. Participating in this Sunday's Annual Meeting is both an answer to Jesus' call and a proclamation of the Good News. We gather tog...

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) Unity. It is interesting to me that this prayer for unity always comes the week before Independence Day. It is almost like the Prayer Book compilers were looking at the national calendar and thinking about the problems of our nation. Unity is something we seem to lack most of the time. With all the intensely polemic political debates, social unrest over issues of injustice, oppression of specific groups of people, and simple normal common everyday difficulties with our neighbors, we don't seem to have a lot of unity in our communities. Not only on a national level or civic le...

Will you go and work in the fields of the Kingdom? My parents have had this scene happen to them many times. I remember such instances with my brothers... they would ask one to make dinner and he would immediately say, No! Of course, after a couple of minutes he would realize that if he didn't make dinner, we weren't going to be eating dinner and he would get up and make dinner. While on the other hand, my youngest brother used to say yes to pretty much anything you asked him. Whether or not he was actually do what he agreed to do was very much up in the air. (He has gotten better about this... sometimes now he actually says no. He used to play the game where he would say yes and then procrastinate as long as he could to see if someone else would do it for him.) Naturally when Jesus asks the chief priests and elder who is doing the will of the father, they have to answer honestly and say the first son, because he actually did what the father asked. He said no at first, bu...