Today is Maundy Thursday, the last Thursday of our annual Lenten observance. The word “Maundy” does not have any meaning in and of itself. It is one of those exotic Episcopal or Anglican terms we sooner or later all become familiar with in our church. Scholars are not even sure of the word’s origin, though…

This is a day focused on liturgy: very basic and profound liturgical actions are recalled and acted out. Any liturgy has at its heart a sacrificial action. We offer something, and God takes that offering and does something wonderful with it, something we cannot do for ourselves. In the Exodus reading for today, the focus…

“And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.” Have you ever heard a verse of scripture as if for the…

Reading deathbed quotations can provide information and amusement, bewilderment, and boredom. Seldom, though, do famous last words produce meaning and inspiration. Such is not the case with Jesus, however. Commonly, Good Friday sermons reflect on Christ’s last words from the cross. But his truer deathbed quotations come in the lessons for today’s worship. Okay. What…

Together with the sense of the Holy, the experience of Maundy Thursday affords us the most profound awareness of the role of change in our lives as well as the meaning of remembrance. Both are interwoven with the events of the saddest day of the church year. The arrest, stealthy court proceedings and torture of…

Let me tell you about something that happened recently in an affluent community in North Carolina. The story comes originally from Irving R. Stubbs, a consultant in organizational leadership. There’s a big congregation in this community, the sort that’s called a “high steeple” church. The lay leaders of that church are also the power brokers…

In churches throughout the world people will gather today to remember. Memory is something we seldom invoke in our culture. We are occupied with the now and the not yet, but we are viewed with suspicion if we recall the past. Yet, the lesson from Exodus recalls the foundation of our Eucharistic life, the Passover…

Have you a will? Have you taken time to think about who is important in your life, and how you would like to thank them, or be remembered? Have you decided what your treasures are, and how those treasures will be divided – or have you tried to figure out how “to take it with…