Sermons on listening
Crossing the threshold toward restoration
Our work is to place our “no’s” at the threshold, and give them to God, fully release and open them to God’s creative work. This can be hard work, for we often feel defeated and overwhelmed with our own “no’s” or those society says to us. But God’s “yes” is waiting for us.
3rd Sunday in Lent
Dialogue happened, lives were changed, and the living water began to flow more freely. This all seems to be a part of God’s plan.
Last Sunday after the Epiphany
Silence can be a faithful response to listening to Jesus, if it causes us to listen more closely to others. Silence can be a faithful response to listening to Jesus if the silence shapes and strengthens our own voice to speak out more strongly against injustice. Silence can be a faithful response to listening to Jesus if it helps us attend to the words placed upon our hearts by God, which refuse to go away, and which pull us into our true selves and toward our vocation. Silence can be a faithful response to listening to Jesus’ voice if our holy hush is due to reverence and remembrance of the glory of God overpowering our hearts and souls.
Easter Eve Vigil & the First Eucharist of Easter
We must sit in the tomb for a bit first, allowing our silence to stretch the space within us, where the voice of God can resonate.
To sit into the tomb, we must first answer God’s invitation to allow God to remove the large stone at the entrance of our heart. The women in our story spent a lot of time wondering about how they were going to move the large stone from the tomb entrance, without bringing along resources to help with its removal. Perhaps they knew God would open the entrance for them.
Our stone, at the entrance to the tomb of our heart, must also be removed, so that we can walk ever more deeply into the place where the unimaginable will be revealed to us. The unimaginable peace which can enter our hearts when we’re dealing with a difficult situation; the unimaginable resolve to forgive someone who has deeply hurt or betrayed us; the unimaginable release of someone we love to her physical death so their spiritual resurrection can be with us now.
13th Sunday after Pentecost- Sept. 7th
We are to stop living as though nothing has changed. We are to put aside the works of darkness: we are to stop gratifying ourselves by harming and provoking each other; and we are to put on the armor of light, by loving our neighbor as ourselves.