Trinity 16, 2023

In the Bill & Hillary Clinton Airpot in Little Rock, Arkansas, a large sign advertises a local church, with the slogan Expect an Experience. That captures perfectly the American religion: Emotivism. Faith means experiencing happiness. Big Evangelicalism equates faith with success, prosperity, health. If you lead a good life, good things will come to you. One slogan puts it this way: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” The first part is true. But God’s plan for the disciples of Jesus might not be what the world calls “wonderful.” Bonhoeffer’s famous saying is more accurate: “When God calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Faith will not eliminate tribulations in your life. Afflictions come to the faithful to strengthen their faith further. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens….

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Reminiscere Vespers 2023

Once they walk, we don’t carry our children anymore. Until they’re sick, or something is wrong; then we revert to treating them like babies, carrying them, wishing we could take all their burdens unto ourselves.

But we can’t. This father knows that. That’s why he says to Jesus, “I carried my son to you.”

How many times had he made similar journeys, carrying his son to physicians, priests, anyone who might be able to help?

His boy seems to have two problems: he’s alalon - what we would today call “non-verbal” - and he has seizures. They cause him to writhe on the ground, foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, and then be non-responsive.

The father attributes all this to demonic activity.

It’s quite natural to say, “Well, today we know better. We have sciency words for it: autism, and seizures.”…

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Trinity 7 sermon 2020

The Washington Redskins announced recently that they’re changing their name. For this season, they’ll be known as the Washington Football Team, which is actually more creative than their style of play.

The name change comes amid the destruction of statues across the land. Stoking the fires of racial and religious division, Shaun King called for the destruction of statues and stained glass images of Jesus and His mother. These Christian symbols are “tools of oppression” and “racist propaganda.”

The fervor behind such iconoclasm is rooted in a new fundamentalism….

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