The Holy Spirit inspires faith in us.  The Holy Spirit inspires good works in us.  The Holy Spirit inspires spiritual growth in us.  The Holy Spirit is guiding us and loving us and revealing the truth to us.  Let us heed John the Baptist’s call and follow Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, God’s Chosen One.  Let us respond to this gift of God with our lives and trust in God’s goodness and love to guide us and shape us, and to guide and shape our world

This is the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. It is his public commissioning. All now know that Jesus is the Messiah who walks alongside sinners, stepping into the cleansing waters making them now bearers of the promise of forgiveness, righteousness and new life.  

On this last Sunday in Christmas, in great joy and celebration for the birth of Christ, I give thanks and praise to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the great Epiphany - the manifestation - of God’s promises.

Repenting, turning our hearts – our whole lives – toward God, is our Advent preparation for the coming Christ child, for Jesus who we know as Savior and Lord.

Matthew 24:36-44 What do movies like Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and Fight Club have in common with the church year? Specifically with how the lectionary presents the story of Jesus? Well, all those movies start off at the end of the story. They show you what happens toward the end and then relate the story of how the characters got where they are. That’s kind of like what happens on the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the church year—when the Gospel reading alwa

The end of time as we know it cannot be truly known by you or by me, because it does not belong to us. But what does belong to us is the Gospel, the Word of God, and the Sacraments which anchors us as we weather the storms around us.

Let us look the mystery of death straight in the eye and gain whatever wisdom it has to offer.  We have no reason to fear death, because Jesus conquered death and opened the way to eternal life for all.  So we can trust and hope and be filled with joyful expectation about whatever’s next.

May you continue to move forward in faith. Now. May God help us to listen. Now. Help us to indeed listen carefully, actively, constantly, for hope…. Now and forever. To listen …for as long as it takes…

How we love and serve God and neighbor will be different for everyone.  We’re free to follow wherever the Spirit leads us.  Not because we have to in order to earn God’s love and forgiveness, but because we are children of God, freed from everything that separates us from God.  Freed to be who we truly are meant to be.  Freed to be generous.  Freed to be loving.  Feed to servants.  Freed to follow Christ wherever He leads. 

What are the injustices we cry out for God to address?  What kind of justice do we long to see?  Are we as persistent in our demand for justice?  Or do we get quickly discouraged, or feel so overwhelmed and disheartened by injustice that we give up?  Do we feel like we’re not making a difference so why bother?  Do we lack persistence in prayer or in action? 

To be grateful for the ways in which God is with us through the Sacraments and the Word, in both the big and the little moments of life, transforms our lives into ones that center God and God’s salvation promises of life, health, forgiveness, justice, and redemption.

Photo by ross tek  on Unsplash Luke 17:1-10 Grace and peace to you all from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ....

We are transformed by the Spirit into people who seek God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Let us commit ourselves to closing the chasm, breaking down barriers, and creating a better world.  Following the call of Jesus and participating in the new creation God is building. 

On this Feast Day of St. Matthew, I am especially reminded how much of a blessing it is to be St. Matthew together.  To share the good news of Jesus Christ with the world and to embody God’s inclusion and hospitality for each other and to our neighbors outside these walls.  I’m so grateful to be a part of this community, and to be the Body of Christ together.

We are found over and over again by God in our baptismal promises and when we eat the bread and drink the wine during communion. These gifts of Word, Water, Wine and Bread are the ways we know God is seeking us and finding us.

It’s hard to consciously act weird. It’s why God blessed us with church communities where we can be weird together, where the Holy Spirit empowers us to keep being weird until it’s no longer weird at all to dedicate our whole selves and all that we have to blessing and serving each other as beloved neighbors. Let’s get weird – the world needs us.

This morning’s story about a dinner party has given us two related meanings in one story. One story showing us what it looks like to live humbly as God’s named and claimed children in service to the neighbor and in our humble position. And the same story giving us a theological image of Christ the Servant that delivers a promise of freedom from striving to become so that we can merely be.

Through this Gospel message today we have encountered how God wants us to live: as healed and unburdened persons. So, let’s hold onto that promise as our great hope together in faith!

Jesus’s message of fire and conflict, when examined closely through a practice of exegesis – is actually sharing a message of hope that God’s Kingdom is on the way and that Jesus has gone through the purifying fire for us, and we are now promised to be the newly baptized children of God, members of God’s Kingdom which we pray will come such that God’s will may be done.   

Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.   It is truly amazing to see a hundred or so young...