Not long ago, I was officiating at a deacon ordination, and I was walking through the church before the service began as I, I sometimes do. I was a little preoccupied, thinking about things, praying about the service. And I came up the aisle, and  as I began to come around the aisle, a church…

It’s interesting that as we go through this season of nonstop news about COVID-19, we celebrated the feast day of Gregory the Great on March 12, who was appointed pope in AD 590, after his predecessor, Pelagius II, had died of the plague. Gregory inherited, pestilence, famine and war. And in that context in the…

  In the last post, we saw that the power/control decision is committed to strictly maintaining the status quo in a way that actually penalizes the innovators First of all, if we’re going to make decisions in the midst of these sort of interregnum situations for which there is no easy answer, it requires of…

Last week, we discussed what I called “the scandal and the sting” of the Christmas story that we sometimes consider so familiar. But the question I want to raise is, what does that element of scandal tell us about Jesus? And what does that tell us about us as we are entrusting ourselves to him?…

“What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs” (Matt. 10:27, NIV). In this verse, Jesus refers to both physical and metaphorical roofs. He is urging his disciples to share the treasure of the gospel by announcing it far and wide.  Making a…

The September/October issue of the “Central Florida Episcopalian” focuses on the arts in church. As a person who has long valued the arts and artists, I find that a fascinating topic. The Arts in the Bible In fact, I have been thinking about the places in the Bible where art was considered as a vehicle…

On June 14, we gave thanks for the life of Basil the Great. Basil is called “the Great” because of the importance and the revolutionary nature of his teaching. Basil had initially planned to go into law. He came from a very well-to-do family in Cappadocia, present-day Turkey. But at 28, his younger brother unexpectedly,…

In part 1 of this series, we examined three characteristics of those who are called to service in the church. This week, we’ll look at more of what the call means. I am writing particularly to deacons, but much of this applies to any Christian. A Call to Slavery One of the things we see…

Each year, the season of Lent, for me, feels like a tremendous relief. No need for pretention; no need for trying to impress. No need to do anything but to enter in with a group of people to acknowledge, quite openly and freely, that we are not all we are called to be. No need…

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed three lessons from Jesus’ Parable of the Net. In this parable, the fisherman represents God, and we are the fish he “catches” in his net. We don’t have the responsibility or the ability to select who is in or out of the net, or the kingdom of…