Despite how the Church has interpreted their presence, Pharisees were not the bad guys. Pharisees were essentially the cultural guardians of their day, people trying to figure out how to carry ancient wisdom and practices into a world of expanding knowledge and changing values.

After more than four decades of watching the Hebrew people develop their sabbath practices, Moses noticed that they’ve forgotten the core meaning for their special day.

There’s a propensity in Modern American Christianity of elevating dramatic stories of conversion, like the story of the demon-possessed guy and the pigs, as the proper example of repentance. But I would argue many more just as sincerely walk Nicodemus’ path of slow and steady growth.

No prayer is magic. There’s no benefit to simply reciting words or just sort of mindlessly droning our way through. As we pray together, the expectation is that we fill in our own specifics as we move along.

In our society, fasting is generally seen as a form of self-discipline. You restrain yourself from indulging in something you know is bad for you or something you may like but don’t necessarily need. The idea is to alter habits and improve health, sort of like an off-season New Year’s resolution.

Along with the Ascension, Jesus’ Transfiguration is right up there with things in the Bible that just don’t make sense in the modern world. The Ascension becomes clearer when we begin thinking in terms of the ancient cosmos with its Three Realms….The Transfiguration, however, gives us no such straightforward explanation.

Epiphany is almost over—only a week and a half remain until Ash Wednesday. As we prepare for Lent, we too need to remember the intention behind the traditions. We need to prepare ourselves to embrace the realities of what fasting and all those other customs surrounding self-restraint are meant to teach us.

Modern American Christianity likes to pick and choose between what parts of the Bible people are supposed to follow to the letter and what parts it’s more appropriate to “spiritualize”—to take metaphorically or, preferably, simply ignore. Around ancient rules and regulations, we sound like Daleks…

Gods are not—and never were—supernatural spiritual beings. Nor are they simply characters invented for story time. They are embodiments—a means of understanding and talking about greater natural, psychological, and social movements that influence and overtake a particular society.

In the oldest usage of the word, “lord” is a term of function, essentially a quick job label, like actor, or carpenter, or professor. It’s a contraction of Old English terms meaning “bread guardian,” or what we might call a “breadwinner.”

Christmas and Easter are the solstices of the Church Calendar, essentially two views of the same star from different points in a single orbit.

A few weeks ago we talked about the threatening circumstances under which Isaiah prophesied. It turns out that Ahaz is actually responsible for a good bit of that, having invited the Assyrian Empire into the region to distract Judah’s northern neighbors, the two kings mentioned in our Isaiah passage…

Jesus…is not living up to expectations. There hasn’t been a world-shaking governmental overthrow. Celestial armies aren’t yet annihilating any human ones. The Kingdom of Heaven may be at hand,[10] but it certainly isn’t making much of an entrance.

It’s easy for us to read passages in the Bible without putting a whole lot of thought toward their context. We read Isaiah’s description of an idyllic world and imagine him speaking during a historic utopia…

All our concepts of the Afterlife are, at best, inherently metaphorical. They can’t help but be. We, after all, can only be familiar with this plane of existence and the things that go with it: bodies, hunger, emotions, and other inherently corporeal experiences.

When we think of religion, “fun” is rarely the first thing that comes to mind. Rules and responsibilities, yes. Seeking a right relationship with God, yes. Church services and other forms of worship, yes. But “fun”? No, not really.

Jesus tells us that God is the God of the living and that to[1] God, figures we would think of as lost to history are actively alive to God’s presence. If that’s the case…how does it look for us to engage in resurrection right now?

Through baptism we receive ordination into the primary and most necessary state of ministry within the Church; we are inducted as formal representatives of God’s Kingdom of Love, Mercy, Generosity, and Peace.

With a couple of baptisms and All Saints Day approaching, I thought that rather than having a formal sermon this morning, it would be good to walk through how our Eucharistic service is designed to speak to us, guiding both our worship and our lives.

I’ve been struggling with distractions lately. Noise and news and chaos and worry and fear keep pulling my attention in so many directions it’s hard to know where to look. Even today’s readings are loaded with them.