Tag: Nature of the Divine
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Sundays After Pentecost, Year B 2023 – 24: Old Testament Passage – Cry out to the Divine
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22 – 23) In days and times past, I have cried out to the Lord God in distress over my present circumstances. The key is though, beloved reader, I am…
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Sundays After Pentecost, Year B 2023 – 24: Psalm Passage – The Lord God has healing & helping powers; Preacher and Seeker ponder the Grace & Blessing of the Divine
Preacher: “The LORD answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you!” I have to confess, I think the psalmist should have have started his petition, intersession, or invocation with the word “May”. Or, perhaps, with a question as if wondering if the the Divine will answer and…
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Sundays After Pentecost, Year B 2023 – 24: Psalm Passage – All the ways the Divine endures us; Preacher & Seeker speak to it
Preacher: “O LORD, you have searched me and known me.” Seeker: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.” Preacher: And yet, Seeker, the Divine still loves us! I mean, knowing all that we are, all we have done, and all we will do –…
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Sixth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Gospel Passage – Jesus talking to the disciples (and us) in a new way
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” (John 15:9) What does it mean to abide in the Divine’s love? Realizing that at point in history we are reading this. Jesus Christ and the One who sent Him are one and the same. First, we have to understand…
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Fifth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Epistle Passage – A precedent of juxtapositions of love
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (I John 4:7 – 8) I can rarely read this verse without remembering the little refrain I learned in youth group. It…
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Third Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Psalm Passage – Leaning in on the relationship with the Divine: Preacher & Seeker take up the psalmist’s plea
Preacher: “Answer me when I call, O God of my right! You gave me room when I was in distress. Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.” I am not sure if this is a plea or a demand from the psalmist. I am hoping, for the psalmist’s sake it is a plea, considering…
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Palm Sunday, Year B 2023: Psalm Passage – Celebrating Jesus’ & the Divine’s Identity during Lent
Preacher: “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries,…
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Transfiguration Sunday, Year B 2023: Gospel Passage – Transformation vs Transfiguration
“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with…
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Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, Year B 2023: Psalm Passage – There is no contrariness in the Divine; Preacher & Seeker testify to it
Preacher: “Praise the LORD!” This has been week that we have considered the inconsistencies that happen in life; even as firm believers we see ups and downs, and paradoxes. There is a full breadth and width in faith, and it is only through faith that we can bridge the contrariness of life. “How good it…
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Fourth Sunday After Epiphany, Year B 2023: Psalm Passage – Concerning the initiation of relief, rescue, and restoration; Preacher and Seeker muse on it
Preacher: “Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.” For this day, at this reading, my feelings are more of relief from being rescued than joy. Joy, the bubbly giggly, feeling is far from me. But relief at respite, if…
A Simple Desire 