HOMILY: First, some thoughts on Genesis 28. Jacob dreams a ladder, a stairway to heaven with angelic beings descending and ascending. When he wakes, he is amazed. Here in this fearful/shameful place (Jacob has deceived his blind father Isaac and stolen a blessing from his brother Esau), the presence of the Holy One overwhelms him, and he is reassured of love. “Truly, YHWH is in this place, and I never knew it!” …
HOMILY: Over the last few generations there has been, as you all know, a revolution in farming practice. Agri-culture has become agri-business. In the past, large numbers of people worked on the land, but now things have changed. Our stomachs are still deeply connected to the land and its produce. But the distance is widening all the time between tilling the soil and consuming the food. Our interaction with the land now tends to take place in supermarkets; a place where food has already been processed into a package for us …
HOMILY: Today’s gospel – good news for the anawim or “have-nots” (11:5) – invites a number of responses. We might respond to the image of the yoke, a farming implement for working cattle, a symbol of Wisdom/torah/teaching. We might respond to the image of Messiah as co-worker. We might respond to the theme of rest or sabbath …
HOMILY: Jesus said: “Every religious scholar who has become a student of the kindom of heaven is like the head of a household who can bring from the storeroom both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).
HOMILY: Jesus the Teacher, we might imagine, sometimes surprised his disciples with a pop quiz. He probably tried to make it helpful and enjoyable. So, let’s imagine a multiple-choice quiz for conscientious disciples.
HOMILY: Matthew’s Jesus speaks of division and even accepts a certain responsibility for division: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” Before commending a Spirit on the side of human frailty and faith: “You who lose your life [as personal project/possession] for my sake [in the Spirit of love] will find it [as renewed promise/communal gift].”
PRAYERS: Intercessory prayers.
HOMILY: It’s common for me to find, as I prepare to lead worship or preach, that a particular image will strike me and add grist to the mill of my thinking.
These two images are from Facebook this week. I follow a group called Unique Trees, and I’m often delighted by what people notice and post.
HOMILY: Our readings present major themes: faith and trust, universal blessing, creative community, desire and promise of healing. Each theme, a window on a world in crisis, reveals figures of frailty and fidelity, religious observance, prophetic hope.
HOMILY: Andre Rublev’s 15th-century Icon of the Holy Trinity is a treasure of Russian art, a treasure of Russian Orthodoxy, and a treasure of Christian faith. Already we are thinking in threes.
