Author: Aaron

Fourth Sunday After Epiphany (A) – 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

In what the world calls foolishness, there is godly power and wisdom.

I remember a certain homebound member visit I made back when I was on internship in Omaha.  Her name was Betty, an older woman who had just moved into one of those institutional settings for people who don’t have a lot of resources, the kind that looks shabby and is staffed with too few nurses and aides who are too busy to really provide the care their patients need.  I walked down the hall to the wing of the building in which she lived, and found I had to pass through locked doors.  This was the memory loss unit, something my internship supervisor hadn’t told me when she asked me to go.  I’d expected to sit down with a beloved member of the congregation and her all her stories about growing up in Omaha.  And now, I had no idea what to expect.

Christmas Day – John 1:1-14

On Wednesday night this past week, our Confirmation Class gathered to talk about the story of the Exodus, when the Israelites left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and traveled out into the desert toward the land God had promised them.  We heard how God gave them the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and how the Israelites began to put their worship life into place in the desert, building a movable temple and consecrating priests to serve God in this special place where he would come to visit them.  That notion of the temple as a thin place on earth, where God’s presence and glory comes to dwell among humankind, is a bit of an odd concept for Christians—at least at first glance.  For our students, it became even more strange when we noted that only consecrated priests were allowed to enter into the temple’s inner sanctum, the tabernacle.  Anyone else going there would die.

Reformation Sunday (Proper 26 C) – Isaiah 1:10-18

Sometimes you can do everything right and still get it wrong, you know?  I remember when we first had the idea of doing a worship service for young children over at Christ Lutheran.  I mentioned it to Bishop Hazelwood, who said, “Well, maybe you’d ought to find out what families’ needs are and address them first, and later you can do worship.”  I should have listened.  But that sounded like a lot of work, work I wasn’t really sure how to do, and I thought it made sense to do something I knew was possible rather than doing nothing because I wasn’t sure how to go about it.  So I began to study.  I read a whole bunch of books about Montessori and community-based Christian education.  I went for training and certification in early childhood music education.  I interviewed pastors of churches that were doing similar things, and wrapped some of their wild stabs in real theology to understand why we were doing what we were doing.  I took a class in the early childhood education department at Quinsigamond Community College.  I worked to come up with a brilliant worship plan, and hired the best musician in the county.  I even figured out how to advertise on Facebook.  And we had two.  On our best days, we had two children, both from the same household.  We never met our goals of reaching our nursery school families, of growing our congregations, of helping to make the congregation viable.  We did everything right, and we still got it wrong.

Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost (C) – Luke 17:11-19

I’m not going to preach this week about current events, but there is one thing I can’t get away with ignoring.  For the sake of those people it effects, I can’t.  So, briefly:  When a person who aspires to be a major governmental leader is caught admitting to sexual assault, and we just see it as par for the course, something is very wrong.  I don’t mean what’s wrong with that person; that’s for another time and context.  I mean there is something very wrong with our nation.  To see rape as something normative is wrong.  And yet we as a society continue to let it happen:  One out of every three women in America has been the victim of some form of sexual assault.  And they are not alone; one out of every ten reported rape victims is male.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (26C) – Luke 16:19-31

I know a man, back in Pennsylvania where I grew up, who is dying of cancer.  He’s gone through a series of treatments, and is now on to some experimental chemotherapy, mostly because the previous treatments haven’t worked, not quite enough.  Somehow, he still has hope.  Yet he’s deeply hurt by family members who have liquidated his possessions, assuming he’s not going to survive.  They have stopped seeing him as a person, and begun seeing him as a victim, perhaps even as already dead.  It’s a messy family system, which helps to explain some of the strange behavior of these relatives—and he even understands why things are the way they are.  But it still hurts to not be seen as the person he is—now desperately poor, medical expenses having destroyed all his assets—but still a human being, having dignity, worthy of respect.

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost (C) – Luke 14:25-33

I have to admit, when I first was looking through the readings for this Sunday, I thought I wanted to focus on the second reading.  This is, I think, the only Sunday in our three-year cycle when we get (almost) an entire book of the Bible.  Just four verses short of the whole letter to Philemon, only 335 words in the original Greek, were read today.  I really like this little letter; it has so many good things in such a nice little package.  So I was prepared to do my research and all that, but thought I’d better read through the Gospel lesson once just to be sure.

Funeral for Hannah Burns – Luke 15:11-24

The Prodigal Son is one of those stories in our Bible that lots of people know, even those who aren’t people of faith.  It has been interpreted many ways over the centuries, wondering just what horrible sin it was that the son went and did in his “dissolute living,” as the scriptures call it.  Was Hannah caught up in this sort of cycle?  Did she walk off with her father’s inheritance, metaphorically speaking?  Did she squander what she had?  Is that what’s going on here?

I think it’s important that we name the elephant in the room.  Hannah was twenty-one years old when she died, too young for anyone, whatever the circumstances.  Tara should not have to bury her daughter.  Russell should not have to bury his daughter.  Kaelynn should not have to grow up without her mother, nor Robyn live without her presence in his life.  None of us should be without her.  But her life was claimed by drug addiction, a disease that does not choose certain people over others.  People of every shape, age, gender, color, economic status, family environment, all of them find addictions in their midst.

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost (C) – Luke 14:1, 7-14

I hate this shirt.  The one I’m wearing now, I mean.  Which isn’t to say it’s not a comfortable shirt.  It’s made by R.J. Toomey, a manufacturer based out of Shrewsbury of all places, until they closed a year or two ago.  It’s extremely comfortable, for a dress shirt.  The collar isn’t complicated like most; it’s just a plastic strip that slips in easy.  And the shape of the shirt itself is like it was made for me; just the right size for the slightly-but-not-grossly-overweight upper body I carry around.  So, as clergy shirts go, I love this shirt.

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost 21(C) – Isaiah 58:9b-14, Luke 13:10-17

My mother once told me that when she was a child, growing up in a church near Detroit, she was taught that one should not chew the bread when receiving communion.  This was the real Body of Christ you were putting in your mouth.  It had been transubstantiated into Jesus’ own flesh, whatever the appearance of it was on the outside.  You couldn’t bite into it, because if you did, it would—well, do what flesh did.  It would bleed.  Inside your mouth.  Which, can I be honest?  Is about one of the most disgusting things I can think of.

Funeral Sermon for Firmin Sillo – Luke 23:32-43

If I had to characterize my impression of Firmin in one word, it would be, “peaceful.”  That’s not to say that he always was so; I imagine I mostly got to see him at times when he was at his best, in low-key moments.  But Firmin always gave me the impression that most moments were low-key moments for him.  He was one to sit in a meeting, listening carefully, taking in all the information, processing it, and only speaking very occasionally—the kind of person you listened to when he spoke, because you knew when he did that it would be worth listening to.  He had a smile that would put you completely at ease, and his manner was clear, and quiet, and comfortable, and you always felt that even when he spoke about something with passion, he would do it in a peaceful, calm way.  I’ve always felt like he was the type of person that, if he were in the kitchen and a grease fire broke out, he would respond by going calmly to the pantry and taking out a bag of flour, and carefully measuring out about two cups, and slowly shaking the flour over top of the fire until the flames dissipated…