Often parishioners come to their clergy or spiritual advisors seeking help with issues of deepening or increasing their faith or of overcoming doubts and uncertainty. This is not surprising because most of us experience such needs. It is a mark of strength of faith to want to grow spiritually. Today’s Gospel reading relates a similar…

A lot of older immigrants routinely offer table scraps to a happily waiting dog under the table. When asked why they don’t simply buy dog food they frequently will answer something like, “This is how we fed pets in the old country. We didn’t have an entire industry devoted to manufacturing food for pets. Look…

Oh, the cleverness of this fellow in today’s Gospel! OK, so he wouldn’t have scored well in the honesty department, but you must admit he was quite clever. It seems that he was dishonest many times over. He worked for a rich man, managing his property. Probably he was well enough paid for this service,…

As we get closer to the general election, it is more and more common to hear someone suggesting that because Candidate X once thought this, and now says that, he or she isn’t being honest! Changing one’s mind may be thought to be a sign of insincerity or weakness. Imagine God changing God’s mind! The…

These days the idea of “centering” ourselves—our spiritual life, our prayer, the way we live our lives—has become a popular concern. People join helpful groups and learn to meditate; they learn to remove from their consciousness everything that is not helpful to the ultimate goal of touching at least the edges of the eternal. People…

A favorite prayer for “birthday blessings,” in churches where people’s birthdays are publicly celebrated, begins: “O God, our times are in your hand…” (Prayer #50, BCP p.380) Isaiah would recognize the phrase, and being a daring and confrontational prophet, he would no doubt ask if we lived, not just on our birthdays, but every day…

Many times, when we read a contemporary book, we pass right over the short quotation many writers include in the very beginning to sum up the meaning or theme of their book. However, one contemporary novel has a great opening quotation that’s impossible to ignore: “Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig.”…

One of the most moving parts of the vocational life of a priest is the sacred privilege and honor of listening to the cares, joys, and concerns in people’s lives. Nothing can compare to the extremes that a priest experiences in performing this sacred act of listening: tremendous highs and the lowest of lows. It…

This very night your life is being demanded of you. (Luke 12:20) A perceptive parishioner once posed this question: “What would you do differently,” she asked her Bible study group, “if you knew you were going to live forever?” Although she posed the question in a light-hearted moment, her query went to the heart of…

The Old Testament story of Abraham’s bargaining with God reminds us vividly that, early on, people of faith believed that the Creator is merciful and that God responds to the requests of people who are longing for mercy on behalf of others. Abraham is not asking God’s favor for himself; he wants to save the…