Sermons (Page 77)
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
How do you pray? What’s the “right” thing to say? I want to have a better prayer life, but how? I get these questions often. And, apparently, the disciples, or at least one disciple, had the same question for Jesus in today’s gospel. It’s an understandable question. We hope that, like baking a cake, if we discover the right formula, mechanism, or magic process then life will be pretty sweet…
Feast of Mary Magdalene
An ancient rumor has it that she was a prostitute. A medieval rumor says that she was Jesus’s concubine. A twentieth century rumor notes that she conceived Jesus’s child. Rumors, imaginative history, and slanderous stories have veiled the image of Mary Magdalene for thousands of years. Yet, as professor Chilton puts it, “history reveals a stronger Mary Magdalene than the predominately male projections that have reigned from the time of Jesus’ critics to her sexualized portraits in New Age fantasies.” And, this all makes me wonder: how did we get here? How did we take a beloved disciple and apostle and turn her life and witness into a sexualized story of slander…
Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
When I came to United States for the first time in 2016, my advisor invited me for lunch and we went to a restaurant. I saw the menu card and I absolutely had no idea what I wanted to eat. There were so many choices, but still I was not able to choose because I was not aware of any of those. However, if I go to an Indian restaurant, even though I haven’t tasted all the dishes in that particular restaurant, I am quite confident in what I want to eat…