And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved,[e] with whom I am well pleased.”

The sacred myth tells us that Jesus rose from death after three days - what transformation happened in that tomb? Jim Burklo connects the story with our gestation of fear into faith, victimhood into victory, harmful theology into healthy spirituality.

Resurrection is not about the physical resuscitation of a corpse. Resurrection is about the wisdom and the courage to proclaim with our lives that Jesus’ vision of the Reign of LOVE continues to rise in us.

In the midst of the chaos, which is Ukraine, Father Stephan spoke about life. Five funerals yesterday, a wedding and a baptism this morning. Father Stephan is from Kiev, where he hopes to return soon.

    In the wilderness of these days, I find myself tempted to retreat from the world around me. The pandemic has trained me

I wonder what the numerous losses our world has experienced in the past two years may have liberated us from. What joys may we discover in this liberation? In the freedom from the way things were? In the discovery of stars to guide us? In the joy we allow ourselves to take in each new birth.

I used to think that the end of the world would come in a blaze of glory. I used to think that when the world ended there would be plenty of warning. I used to think that if you paid enough attention to what was going on around you, you would be able to tell when the world was going to end.

I believe that God’s love undergirds creation and is at work always in our world, sometimes despite the seeming evidence to the contrary. And I believe that God’s love is for everyone - it is indeed the bread of life, no matter what symbols or metaphors we use.

1st  Corinthians chapter 13. Danna recited it from a brand-spanking new translation of the Bible; you may remember, if you are of a certain age, it was called “Good News for Modern Man:”

We can no longer deny that the seeds of racism and hatred are growing at a pace which threatens to choke our long-ago dreams of a multicultural paradise.

From within this pandemic wilderness of Lent, we must prepare ourselves to enter our second Holy Week in lockdown. At a time, when so much of our focus revolves around the hope generated by the arrival of vaccines, it occurs to me that we would do well to remember to vaccinate ourselves against more than just COVID.

The Scriptural evidence of this has always been right before our eyes. Yet, it is only in recent years that we have come to appreciate the Jewish roots of Christianity.

What a strange Advent this has been. In the midst of this pandemic, so many of our rituals and customs have been set aside as we struggle to do our part to slow the numbers down and bend that curve. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have much of an appetite for John the Baptist’s ranting and raving this Advent Season.

Blaise Pascal wagered that it is better to believe in God as if God existed than not believe as if God didn't. He argued that if God exists and we believe, then we are positioned by our beliefs to gain eternal happiness; whereas if we don't believe, then we might have positioned ourselves for eternal torment in hell for not believing. The gains or losses are therefore infinite if God exists.

Our gratitude for the great fullness of our lives is only the beginning of what it means to be alive. It is not enough to simply be grateful for all that we have all that we will receive. Our gratitude for the reality that our cups are filled to overflowing with blessings leads us to thanksgiving.

I wonder when I stopped looking to the rivers, or to the sky, or the oceans, or the mountains and all the creatures who live upon the Earth so that I might find the answers to my questions. I can’t quite pinpoint the moment when I stopped fishing for answers in Creation and began fishing in libraries.

I used to think that the addition of ‘another member of the church’ was a cop-out, and that we really should forgive everyone without counting. Yet in another place Jesus specifically tells his disciples to kick the dirt off their feet as protest to those who will not accept them. This doesn’t sound like forgiveness. Was he contradicting himself? Some would say ‘yes.’ I have even done so myself. But my own cultural circumstances in 2020 have made me revisit this and come out with a different conclusion.

Let us use our moral imaginations to try to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt (just as we should do with each other in our daily lives). We all know that there are those who are poor and suffering who still side with the wealthy and healthy rather than with their own people. It is ironic, but we see such things common even in our own time.

It has been said that the shortest distance between humanity and the truth is a story. I believe that it stands to reason that a good story, a really good story has the power to reveal truth about the MYSTERY which we call God. So, let me tell you a good story.

The following sermon was given for my siblings at Montview Presbyterian Church, one of the three local worshipping communities I am affiliated with here in Denver. (The other two being St John’s Episcopal Cathedral and New Beginnings, a Lutheran church that meets within the walls of the Women’s Prison.

Looking upon the sea of interpretations of the story about Jesus walking upon the waters of the Sea of Galilee, makes me feel like that young monk who continues to sink each time he tries to find his way across the lake.

During our lock-down we have found new ways of being the Church, new ways of seeing the DIVINE in one another, new ways of communing with one another.

Today’s lectionary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is an appalling story about a Father, Son, and sacrifice. God commanded Abraham to make a human sacrifice of his only son, Isaac.

To the powers that be, Jesus’ execution was little more than the routine death of a homeless, outcast who spent far too much time creating social unrest. Nothing more than the insignificant death of a troublemaker without influence in the halls of power, who would not or could not moderate his own behavior. An insignificant troublemaker dies, under the rule of law, and yet, the impact continues to reverberate all around the world, nearly 2000 years after it should have been long forgotten.

Perhaps the story isn’t so much about God but about us. But if you accept that the Bible is the work of many authors, the story tells you nothing about God. Instead, it tells you what the various authors’ believed.

As we stand, you and I, at the shoreline of destruction, seeing, in the distance, the end of this American empire, there is but one way forward, old and true: Be not conformed to this society — nor kill yourself to make it love you — but be transformed in it, against it, by the renewal of your mind, body, and spirit. No matter the cost.

Whether you agree with me or not in my diagnosis of our situation, I’m sure you agree that our social divisions are worsening.  Painful disagreements on what really matters, who’s right, and who’s wrong are dividing families and friends down the middle. Jesus’ prophecy is coming true in that sense.  These divisions are creating real wounds for some, and exposing long-standing wounds for others as people take sides and as the underbelly of our society is being exposed. 

How did we get here? All over the world people are marching in the streets proclaiming, “Black lives matter.” Millions have defied the fear of the corona virus, and taken their lives into their hands to venture out into the streets to protest the systemic racism that permeates institutions all over this planet.

Like many of you I have watched a wept as over and over again, young black men and women have their breath taken from them as they are murdered in the streets, in their yards, on their porches, and in their beds by the very ones who are sworn to protect and serve them.

Senses sharpened in the silence, gently, quietly, feel your breath, know God’s love will never leave us, now, or in our time of death.