A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

A couple of years ago I was standing in our driveway, conversing with someone, I can’t remember who, when a man in a suit ran up, he was out of breath and red in the face. He looked at me, I had my collar on, and he said, a little exasperated, “Are you the priest here?!” I said I was, he took a deep breath and said with some urgency, “Someone is in your garden taking your vegetables, I think he’s a homeless person, and he’s taking a whole bunch of tomatoes and other veggies.” I smiled at the man, and said, that’s ok, that’s what the garden is there for, it serves our food shelf and anyone who is hungry. He looked even more exasperated and sighed, “OK, if that’s ok, I guess, that’s ok.” And he walked away. I know I have told you this story before, but what I haven’t told you, is that the man who was in the garden was one of our own members. A pledging, active member of Gethsemane Church. We make great assumptions about people based on what they look like and e...

Who do people say that I am? Have you ever wondered what your own response might be to this question? What if Jesus walked in, and for whatever reason, we thought this was normal, and as Jesus stood among us, he asked us, “Who do people say that I am?” What would we say? Would we follow Peter’s path and say that Jesus is the Messiah? Or would we say something else, something more appropriate to our own context? Who do you say that I am? It seems that Jesus is working on his own self-awareness, his own understanding of who he is in a context that is constantly evolving and coming to fruition. The write of the Gospel of Mark seems also to not want his Jesus to be seen as a, or as the Messiah, so he has Jesus say to his disciples, do not say a word of this to anyone. The Messianic secret of Mark, Mark doesn’t want anyone to know about this Jesus and who exactly Jesus might be. This story of Mark has always resonated for me, it always seems like the most accessible story of Jesus’ Messia...

“Good luck storming the castle!” Miracle Max yells out. “Do you think it’ll work?” his wife asks. “It’ll take a miracle.” Miracle Max says in return. I introduced the kids to “The Princess Bride” this weekend, and for whatever reason they both laughed out loud at this exchange, after Inigo Montoya, Fezzick and the Man in Black leave Miracle Max’s house with a miracle pill, covered in CHclate, and with a hope to save PRicness Buttercup from the evil Prince Humperdinck. One of the greatest movies ever made. There is another wonderful movie called Amelie, many of you may have seen it, it is about a young woman who finds some old nostalgic treasures in the wall of her flat in France and returns them to their owner inspiring her to do good deeds to all the people she is able to help in a day. Little miracles, we may call them, deeds that bring love and light to the people they effect. The first person Amelie sees in her effort to be a Good Samaritan is a blind man, she grabs the blind man...

It feels like this Gospel, at first glance should comfort us. It should be a Gospel that tells us clearly, human tradition, while good in many ways, is not often the way of God. It could be seen as a Gospel that could lead us down a path of justice, of righteousness. Indeed, as I began studying this scripture, that is where I went, how can I fight the Religious Right and their rules and regulations, their dogma and doctrine that is so oppressive. I even was able to ask the hard questions about Christianity and religion on a large scale, the Church is such a challenging presence in the world in many ways, trying to limit the rights and freedoms of so many. Deceiving people in all corners of the earth. Stories abound about the harm Religion has caused over the past millennia. And here we have in front of us, a scripture that moves us to that place where Jesus himself is saying that human tradition is not the end all be all for how we are to live our lives. How we follow God, how we speak...