“If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” We talked last week about the stories that repeat themselves throughout the…
Proper 19(A) – The Director’s cut (Exodus 14: 19-31)
About ten years ago, Xavier and I had a couple of friends from Seminary who moved out to Pasadena to start working in a new church. A few months after that, we decided to visit them and take the opportunity to see Los Angeles for the first time. And one of the things we planned…
Proper 18(A) – Courage in the midst of conflicts (Matthew 18: 15-20)
One of the things Bishop Sarah does is to send by email to all those who have signed up a weekly reflection, it’s generally based on the lectionary and it’s usually a very short message, where she invites her readers to consider something for themselves about the Sunday Scriptures. And I really enjoyed what she…
Proper 16(A) – Courage in the face of evil (Exodus 1:8-2,10)
It can be a bit intimidating to open the Book of Exodus, at least it is to me, and today is the first Sunday of a series of many lessons that will takes us to the end of October, almost to the season of Advent. But Exodus is such a big book isn’t? It’s a…
Proper 15(A) – The end of the journey (Genesis 45: 1-15)
One could say that this Sunday is officially “The end of the beginning” since we have reached the end of the book of Genesis! It’s not exactly true though: We’re in Chapter 45 and there are actually 50 chapters in Genesis, yet for us it’s indeed the last lesson from our lectionary. Next week, we…
Proper 14(A) – God’s good order (Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28)
This morning I am wearing my stole of many colors in honor of Joseph, our main character, our hero for the day, or more precisely our hero for this Sunday and next Sunday. After that, we will be done reading through Genesis. I think it’s a little annoying that such a long, beautiful story has…
Proper 12A – The biggest trickster of all (Genesis 29: 15-28)
Today again we’re going to spend some time with Jacob, and one thing we may not have realized before is that he is one of the most well developed character in all the book of Genesis: We actually find him in 25 chapters out of Genesis’ 50 chapters, and the episode we have today directly…
Proper 11A – Not your Dad’s faith! (Genesis 28:10-19a)
So today we’re back in the book of Genesis and a lot has happened since Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac in the land of Moriah. You may remember that, after the angel held back the patriarch’s hand, Isaac was unbound, not only literally but also unbound from his parents’ emotional ties, freed to finally…
Proper 9(A) – The invitation (Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30)
Good morning, welcome and I know we’re not supposed to mix politic and religion but Happy 4 of July anyway! I am indeed happy that we have this occasion to get together, to celebrate, I’ve heard it’s been a while we’ve haven’t had a cookout here at Holy Trinity – it may not be the…
Proper 8(A) – A faith that trusts (Genesis 22: 1-14)
Today we continue reading from the book of Genesis and the “Saga Abraham” with this well known story about the sacrifice of Isaac, and the first thing we may say about it is that it’s one of the most difficult passages of the Old Testament. It’s difficult to hear, it’s difficult to understand and mostly,…