Link to: http://scripting.com/2025/11/20.html#a143930

On this final Sunday of the liturgical year, the lectionary places before us a strange and unsettling image of kingship. Not a coronation. Not a throne room. Not a ruler surrounded by splendor. Instead: a hill outside the city. A bruised and broken body. A sign nailed above a dying man’s head. And yet the Church insists—this is our King.

Three years ago, when the Gospel assigned for this week last was read, I had this to say: In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is warning us that the Apocalypse is coming. That word, apocalypse means “hidden” in Greek. Jesus is telling us in the Gospel today that the violence and injustice that is present in the world, and which seems hidden from us, is about to become manifest and evident to everyone.

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When we turn to this passage from Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, we find ourselves face to face with language that sounds, frankly, a bit mysterious—and even unsettling. Paul is warning his readers not to be “quickly shaken in mind or alarmed,” even though rumors are circulating that the Day of the Lord has already come. He insists that there are still events to unfold: the “rebellion,” the revealing of the “lawless one,” and the removal of “the one who restrains.”

Social media can push us to the dark side, with negative content. A new study finds watching inspiring videos for just 3 minutes a day is on par with meditation for boosting mood and reducing stress.

There’s a question at the heart of All Saints’ Day. It’s not a question we usually ask out loud in church, but it sits quietly in the background of our prayers and hymns, in the candles and the names spoken at the altar. The question is this:Do we still believe in the future? Do we still trust that God is not done with the world—that the story is moving somewhere, that there will come a day when what is wrong will be made right?

Convention 2025 Sermon Texts:Isaiah 55:10-11Matthew 13:1-9 “Let’s take a moment. Close your eyes and picture a bright spring morning. The sky is blue, the air is crisp and imagine you are standing in a newly plowed field—a New England sort of field—with wet mud surrounding big granite rocks, all lit by a warm spring sun. You have a heavy cloth bag slung over your neck, filled with all sorts of seeds: little ones, big ones, some smooth and some pointy, jabby even.

My address to the 234th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island2025 Have Faith 401 — Convention Address A number of years ago, at a meeting of General Convention, I heard that a bishop from Central Africa had said something that has stayed with me since. I was chairing the Legislative Committee on Evangelism at the time, and in the course of our deliberations we were reminded, very quietly, “Conversion is a sovereign act of God.

It is often said that more miracles happen in a church basement than in the nave. In the nave, we use the polished brass, we process in order, we sing beautiful hymns, we hear fine sermons. It’s holy space—yes—but it can sometimes become a place where we perform our piety. But in the basement… that’s where people show up to be honest.

Jesus’ parable is not just about prayer as personal comfort. It’s about the kind of prayer that sustains action. We’re told to keep working even when we don’t see the fruits of our labor. Many of the great movements toward justice in our time have been long, slow, often discouraging struggles: gender equality, civil rights for all citizens, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people, immigration reform, the defense of creation itself.

Philip Jenkins has written about why the Bible speaks so naturally to many Africans today. The world of Scripture—its agricultural life, its social relations—is much closer to their own experience than to ours. He points to verses like these found in Psalm 126: Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.

Having Faith as St. Paul or as Our Lord seems to use it here doesn’t mean that we have to believe a certain set of logical propositions to be saved. It’s also not about believing in one key idea that serves as a magic talisman to open the gate of heaven to our command. (For some reason, perhaps because of our educations, this seems to be a commonly held mistaken belief today.)

One of the most striking features of St. Luke’s gospel is the constantly repeated theme of reversal. People who were on the outside of the community are now inside. People who were powerful in their life are now powerless. People who were discounted by society or treated as being disposable, are to be seen, once the Kingdom dawns, as the apple of God’s eye.

What the steward in this week’s parable actually does is to forgive people. He cancels debts. He uses forgiveness as the coin of the realm. Jesus himself seems to reinforce this point. In the Lord’s Prayer, the only conditional is this: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Our standing with God depends on our willingness to forgive.

This week we begin a series of readings in St. Luke’s Gospe that sometimes described as the Gospel of the Outcasts. It’s about finding those who are pushed to the edges, those who are living on the margins, those who are lost? What do we have to offer the lost? If we are to search alongside the Shepherd, if we are to sweep the house with the diligence of the woman, what exactly do we have in our hands to share?

Artificial Intelligence makes an alluring promise: a frictionless life. Already, it is possible to summon almost anything with a voice command or a swipe. A pizza arrives when we want it, wherever we are. Some speculate that soon enough, our personal digital servants will anticipate our cravings before we are even aware of them. The moment we begin to feel a pang of hunger for our favorite slice, it will already be on its way.

So maybe this Gospel doesn’t fit in the cheerful context of “Welcome Back Sunday”. But it speaks with urgency to our lives right now. We live in a world where trust is hard. Economies fluctuate. Na…

Socrates once pointed out that even those who claimed to reject honor— like the Cynics, who would walk through the marketplace without shame— were really just chasing honor of a different kind. They wanted people to admire their shamelessness. They were still playing the same game as the people they were criticizing. And we can fall into the same trap.

Luke tells us of a woman who had been bent over for eighteen long years. She couldn’t stand up straight. She couldn’t lift her eyes to meet another’s face. She couldn’t walk into a room with dignity, or even look up at the heavens. She was quite literally bowed down. And when Jesus notices her, something striking happens. He stoops down to meet her where she is.