homiletics
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Circles and Triangles and Lava and Ice, Oh My
Today is Trinity Sunday, when the Church celebrates one of its greatest mysteries. We affirm our belief in the mystery of the Trinity every time we recite the Nicene Creed. The mysteries of the Church are supernatural truths. These are realities that we know to be true, and we accept the fact that we cannot… Continue reading
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Come Holy Spirit
Today is Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Spirit was given to the apostles and to the church. Pentecost is sometimes called the birthday of the church. On the Church calendar, Pentecost is one of the Sundays when we sing something called the sequence before we hear the gospel proclaimed. The sequence for today is an… Continue reading
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Good Sheep Sunday
On the Fourth Sunday of Easter we are reminded by the Church in the readings that Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead and will ascend to his throne in Heaven, did not leave his people unprotected. He left us shepherds. He tells us why in the old testament reading and in the letter from… Continue reading
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Gift
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to the end that whoever believed in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This is John 3:16, the verse you are most likely to see on a sign in the stands at a football game or other public event. It speaks… Continue reading
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Fishers of Men
“Repent and believe in the Good News.” This message is so commonly proclaimed by preachers, it can become so familiar we stop listening and just hear “blah, blah, blah.” Jonah was not the first preacher in Nineveh, and Jesus was not the first in Galilee. Somebody else preached from this very ambo on these very… Continue reading
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Mary, the handmaid of the Lord
The Ark of the Covenant and the Temple of the Lord were important physical manifestations of the presence of Yahweh in the lives of the Israelites. God was the creator of everything, willing it into existence in the creation story by saying, “Let it be so.” Adam and Eve, the first human persons, were his… Continue reading
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Preparing for his coming
After two months of Gospel readings about the day of judgment at the end of time we are given in the readings today a picture of who it is that will judge us in the General Judgment. We had story after of story of a day of reckoning, and there was Gehenna and locked doors… Continue reading
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The Coming Day of Judgment
You may have noticed the serious tone of the gospels we have been reading for about a month. We had the unfaithful stewards, who neglected their duties and tried to get the master’s vineyard for their own. And there was a day of judgment in that story. And we had the story of the wedding… Continue reading
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Whose Image is on the coin? On you?
In the Old Testament reading, we meet Cyrus the Great, who was king of the Persian empire. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells Cyrus that all his power came from the God of the Israelites even though Cyrus did not acknowledge the Lord. In the Gospel reading, we hear of a challenge presented to Jesus… Continue reading
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The parable of the laborers
Last week’s reading from the Gospel was about the mercy of the king, and this week’s seems to be about justice. Last week, the debtor who received mercy from the king could not extend mercy to somebody in his debt. This week, the laborers agree on a just wage with the landowner at the start… Continue reading
Bound in Love 