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How are we called to respond to political polarization as Christians? How can moral witness and empathy come together?

Resurrection is about the healing of trauma in and through the body.

What to do with difficult feelings like anger, sadness, despair as people of faith.

How can the epidemic help us to more fully become the Beloved Community?

What do we do with that Adam and Eve story?

On the importance of being vulnerable.

About salt and other things.

The revolution Jesus brought was different than people expected.

Where are we headed together on Christ’s way?

What does the Bible challenge us to do and be if we are white people?

What do you do when God turns out to be bigger, and more inclusive, than you thought?

You think the resurrection is scary? Take a deeper look at the incarnation!

What if God really does show up in the most desperate circumstances?

Here’s to Joseph, a righteous man!

What the end up of days can teach us about ourselves and God.

Coming to terms with our brokenness is how the light gets in.

About the importance of living in the present.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the perfect argument that silences those we oppose? Of course, when you think about it, the argument that leaves people gasping for words is really a thing of fantasy.  In any dispute there is always a comeback.  In fact, the notion that argument alone can sway somebody is sort of a dream in general.  With most people, by the time you're in an argument, each side has long since shut down to the other's point of view and is listening for one purpose only: rebuttal. In fact the only kinds of words I can imagine that might truly flabbergast and silence one's opponents are not words that construct the perfect argument, but words that surprise enmity with love.  Words that do not toss grenades but extend olive branches.  Words that sidestep the oppositional dynamic of debate in general, and instead insist on our common humanity, our common susceptibility to transformation for the better. Today, a story of a colleague of mine who found those words to say. For more information about the life of the church where this sermon was preached, find our website at www.holycrossnovi.org or our facebook page under the name “Holy Cross Episcopal Church.” Or join us for worship, Sunday mornings at 8:00 and 10:00 at 40700 W. Ten Mile Road, Novi, MI 48375.

If the day of judgment makes sense to you, that’s totally cool.  But I’ve always had trouble with this idea that there will come some moment in the future when we who were faithful in life will spring from our graves and occupy a new earth with Jesus and God and all the saints.  It seems a bit literalistic—like one more among many ideas and traditions that make the church seem “odd, archaic, and even irrelevant” to so many people. I guess what it really comes down to for me is community.  I have always sensed God’s presence most powerfully in the inter-connections among people.  In fact, I first heard my own calling to ministry in the context of serving communion, of breaking bread and sharing wine in a circle together, as Christians have done for twenty centuries. This goes to what I would consider to be the difference between religion and spirituality as we tend to use these terms.  Spirituality is mostly about the individual, the self and its interior experiences and its personal engagement with the world.  That’s why, when speaking of their spirituality, so many people follow our YouTuber in referencing meditation or yoga or hikes in the woods.  All of that is vital.  We need that, for sure.  But it doesn’t necessarily ask much of us in relation to one another.  It’s a symptom of, and not a challenge to, the me-focused, hyper-individualized society we live in. Religion, on the other hand, forces us to come together in community.  Religion puts us with people we would probably not meet otherwise, people of different ages and classes and backgrounds, people we may not even like and tells us to love one another.  Religion cajoles and commands and inspires us to share our resources with others.  In this sense it is profoundly counter-cultural.  It is messy and contentious and, when it goes wrong, deeply hurtful.  But it says to us, as we negotiate and irritate and tolerate each other, Here is beauty.  Here is love.  Here is God. For more information about the life of the church where this sermon was preached, find our website at www.holycrossnovi.org or our facebook page under the name “Holy Cross Episcopal Church.” Or join us for worship, Sunday mornings at 8:00 and 10:00 at 40700 W. Ten Mile Road, Novi, MI 48375.

The promise of All Saints' day, captured in the John O’Donohue poem we read, is that those we've loved are here in some metaphysical way as well--a cloud of saints who have entered into joy, watching and praying for us on our own way there.  I always think of the "cloud of witnesses" passage in Hebrews 12, which is oddly never assigned on All Saints Day.  That passage also compares life to running a race, and if you've ever run a race, you'll know that all these spectators line up along the sidelines shouting words of encouragement, telling you you're looking good (even when you're not), cheering you on.  That stuff really matters.  You're miles into the endurance event, and you feel buoyed up by their words.  You feel seen and heartened.  It's a comfort to think that all those we've known and loved are doing that for us.  Or even, depending on how God has wired you, to sensethat they are, to feel their presence. But I know that God has not wired all of us for such an experience.  Some of us are more tied to tangible reality than others.  And in this most concrete sense, the note that my friend's father wrote, "I am here," is only true in the past.  He was here, and now he's not.  And yet even this approach to remembering the dead has something spiritual to remind us: all we really have is right now.  So the deepest and best way to live is to be with those we love while we are with them.  To truly appreciate the presence of one another.  To be fully here while we are here. For more information about the life of the church where this sermon was preached, find our website at www.holycrossnovi.org or our facebook page under the name “Holy Cross Episcopal Church.” Or join us for worship, Sunday mornings at 8:00 and 10:00 at 40700 W. Ten Mile Road, Novi, MI 48375