How human Samuel is in today’s reading! His story begins with him grieving over the disobedience of Saul, over the loss of a great king to selfish interest and, if we read further in the story, ultimately to madness. Just like us in our Lenten journey, Samuel reluctantly agreed to God’s call to set aside…

Monuments attract outcasts. This is as true today as it was in our Lord’s time. Walk outside the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, a.k.a. the National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C., and you will find today’s outcasts, the homeless. If you had walked outside the Temple in Jerusalem, mentioned in today’s Gospel, you would have…

Most of the western United States suffers severe droughts in several decades every century. These are times when the grass is brown or there is no grass at all and the land is cracked and broken; times when cattle are forced to gather around broken up bales of hay and creep feeders; when stock tanks…

The Pharisee Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, paid a visit to Jesus cloaked by the secrecy of night. He came alone to probe and to have some questions answered. We might ask, “Why did he come at night?” Was it because he didn’t want anyone to see him in the company of this man,…

Change reading to “born again!” Honestly — in some ways our lessons today are real jokes. We enter into a humorous story about two old people, Abraham and Sarah, who are sad that they have had no child together; no child to carry on their name and inheritance. But they were realistic about the situation;…

It’s hard getting God to obey us. After all we’re the ones on the scene. We know what we need, or our parish needs, or what we need as individuals. God should listen to us and take our advice. If God would only be here when needed, there would be no tragedy in our lives….

Our 40-day Lenten journey began on Ash Wednesday. In many churches, the people of God were marked with ashes as a sign of penitence and mortality. In words, we are told, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (BCP, p. 265) And forever mindful of the horror of September 11, 2001,…