Good Shepherd Sunday is not some sweet, sentimental song to make us feel safe and secure. It is the assurance that God sets a table for us, even in the presence of our enemies, and that we live this life in the valley of the shadow of death, but that we do not walk through the valley alone. It is a reminder that the power of God is not the power of this world, which seizes and hoards, but the power of love, which willingly sacrifices.
Texts: Isaiah 25:6-9 + Psalm 118:1-2,14-24 + Acts 10:34-43 + Mark 16:1-8 “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” That was the question preoccupying the women as they came to the place where Jesus had been lain that first Easter morning. I guess I’d never given it much … Continue reading Sermon: Sunday, April 5, 2015: The Resurrection of Our Lord — Easter Day
These are the storied waters by which we baptize, and tonight we celebrate with our brother Ryan who has responded to the call of the Holy Spirit to come and die. To come and die to the numbing death of conformity to a culture of violence. To come and die to the wasting death of complicity with a culture of scarcity. To come and die to the corrupting death of privilege in a culture of supremacy. To come and die to the tragic death of waste in a culture of consumption and degradation. Ryan has heard the call to die to all that is killing us, and to rise with Christ, the firstborn of a new creation. So we celebrate with him, and his family, and his beloved, Rachel, and with the whole church, the rebirth of a new disciple, a new storyteller, a new artist in the commonwealth of God, the anti-empire, the reign that has no end.
By Proclamation 