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Creative Hospitality

Genesis 18:1-15 Once my mother forgot that she invited a guest for dinner. We were midway through our meal at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. There he was, all dressed up and smiling, prepared to be a dinner guest. My mother was acutely embarrassed, as well as panicked. But she reacted quickly. She immediately gathered us all together to go out to a nearby restaurant with our guest, as though she had planned it that way all along. For the first and only time in my life I was encouraged to eat a second dinner – a special treat. My mother was a delightful hostess all through the meal, and all was well. I always found it remarkable that she was able to recover so well and turn a near crisis into a very enjoyable evening. This was an unusual experience, but actually, hospitality was an ordinary everyday […]

Spoken into Creation

Genesis 1:1-2:4a There is a restaurant in Austin Texas called El Arroyo. It has become famous, not for its food, but for its sign. Every day they put up some new witty saying – often reflecting an issue of the day, sometimes just weird and off-the-wall. Like this one: There’s no way that “everybody” was Kung Fu fighting. Or: 90% of marriage is shouting “What” from different rooms. Or this one: We all think we’re smart until we try to turn on someone else’s shower. The sign has become a marketing bonanza for El Arroyo. They’re happy to sell you coasters, magnets, tea towels, Christmas ornaments with some of the cleverest sayings from over the years. It’s way more popular than the restaurant, and it caught my attention because, many years ago, I worked at the restaurant – for about five minutes. I started working there as a waitress when I […]

The Places We Will Go

Acts 2:1-4 Acts 10:34-36 There is an old folk song called Sonny, and it makes me cry every time I hear it. It tells a story about a man who grew up living on a farm with his mother. His father was a sailor and never at home, so Sonny took care of the farm from a young age. The chorus repeats his mother’s words to him: Sonny, don’t go away; I’m here all alone. Your daddy’s a sailor, never comes home. Nights are so long, silence goes on; I’m feeling so tired and not all that strong. Sonny hears these words all his life and he never leaves. Even after his mother dies and Sonny is all alone on the farm, he continues to hear his mother’s words in his dreams. Sonny never leaves, and he becomes the one who is truly alone. Even if his mother would never […]

Claiming New Possibilities

Matthew 16:13-20 On the day of our wedding, I remember standing in the church with Kim and both our parents gathered around us in a tight little happy circle. I very clearly remember Kim’s mother saying to my mother how hopeful she was that I would get Kim’s life more organized. And I remember the doubtful expression on my mother’s face. “I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. Neither of our mothers had a high opinion of our organizational abilities. I guess, for both of them, prior experiences kept their expectations quite low. Looking back, I have to assume they prayed for us. a lot. But I also have to wonder if they were pleasantly surprised later, when we both managed to be pretty normal grownups, who do all kinds of stuff. Successful adults, you might even say. It turned out we both had the ability to respond to the […]

Into the Light

Luke 24:28-49 W.H. Auden wrote a poem that became very famous when it was included in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. It begins, Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. It is a poem about the loss of a loved one, someone so near and dear to the heart that it just feels like the world has ended. It goes on, Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead. There is the sense of the earth shifting beneath us and nothing will ever be the same. It is cosmic in its scope: The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. I don’t know any other […]

Safe This Far

1 Chronicles17:16-17 Years ago, a young man named Samuel Jones felt the overwhelming sense of being called to Christian ministry. He went to his pastor with this news. To his surprise, the pastor immediately set him up with a date to preach. It would be a Sunday evening service. Samuel threw himself into preparations for a sermon that he hoped would impress everyone. That Sunday evening, he stood in the pulpit and looked out at a full congregation, all there to hear and encourage him. He began to preach his prepared sermon, full of big words and clever arguments. But soon he began to stumble. And he was lost. He could not remember anything he wanted to say. He was ashamed and stepped down from the pulpit feeling so much the failure. But as he walked away, he felt God asking him a question: Samuel, have I really given you nothing? The […]

Telling Stories

John 20:1-18 Many years ago, my parents moved into a nice rental house in a nice neighborhood. This was shortly after I graduated high school. Most of the years I was growing up, we had lived in town houses, in neighborhoods where they were all rentals. They were okay; there was nothing wrong with them. But this place was different; it was pretty nice. I don’t know how they found this place, probably from an ad the owner had put in the newspaper. And we didn’t know why he was renting out the house, he just was. But nothing abhors a vacuum like the imagination. My mother was great at developing stories. My mother’s favorite words were, “I wonder…” as she began to let her imagination spin out a tale that would give meaning to whatever was on her mind. When she began wondering about our landlord, she went to work. She asked aloud, “I wonder […]

The Unexpected

Matthew 21:1-11 There is a film called The Banshees of Inisherin about a man named Padraic. He is a sweet, gentle guy. He lives on a little island off the coast of Ireland, sharing a cottage with his sister, Siobhan, who loves him. Padraic has a friend Colm, who he thinks loves him, and life is fine – until it isn’t. Something that is said again and again throughout the story is that Padraic always thought of himself as one of the good ones; never harmed anyone, always a kind word for everyone. But when he gets pushed hard enough, it turns out he is capable of some pretty horrific things. Padraic is changed through the course of this story. But in the end, he’s not a different person. He is just showing something that has always been inside of him. It was unexpected. But, in truth, it’s something that is inside of all of us, if we are truthful; […]

The Shepherd

Psalm 23 John 9:1-41 Robert Jones has been a Christian all his life. He was raised in the Southern Baptist Church – this was something that played an important part in forming his identity. But at some point, he began to have questions he could not ignore. There were things about his upbringing and the church community that he grew uncomfortable with. He began noticing the implicit racism all around him. He increasingly became aware of the assumptions that were made about people that no one ever seemed to question. Beliefs and preferences were accepted as facts. But, to Robert, they no longer seemed to be reliably factual. As an adult he pursued a career studying religion in America, particularly the way our religion forms our social and political identity. He founded an organization called the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducts opinion polls to measure how political issues in […]

The Helper

John 3: 1-17 Way back in the beginning, Lent was a season of preparation for new Christians, who would be baptized on Easter Sunday. The typical Lenten discipline was the fast. It was taken very seriously. Usually, fasting was observed Monday through Saturday, when they were permitted only one meal at the end of the day – a vegetarian meal. Sundays were exceptions, because every Sunday is considered a little Easter – a feast day, a celebration of the resurrection. It is rare now for Christians to observe such a strict Lenten discipline. When we think of a Lenten fast, we might think of giving up sweets or caffeine. We consider it optional. And, very likely, we are not really sure what the point of it is. This is probably why many Christians now embrace the idea of taking something up rather than giving something up during Lent – that feels more purposeful, somehow. Yet the Lenten fast is a […]

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