A Lenten Mitzvah
March 12, 2017
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
The 2nd Sunday in Lent
Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
(Gospel Text provided below)
Thursday a week ago I received a Facebook message from a former co-worker. In it, and the ensuing phone conversation, I learned that one of the sons of a close friend in Houston had died. Jonathan was twenty-seven. His death was tragic.
Since the family is Jewish, I knew the funeral would be quick, so within an hour I had a plane ticket and began rearranging my schedule for the weekend. I landed in Houston by mid-morning on Friday, and arrived at the graveside by 2pm. Standing in the bright sunlight, feeling the cool spring breeze, I held tightly to the yarmulke I received fourteen years earlier at Jonathan, and his twin sister, Robin’s, b’nai mitzvah.
After reflections about Jonathan’s life were shared by the rabbi, we recited Psalm 23 – Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. We were then all invited to help shovel dirt on the plain-wood coffin that had been lowered into the ground – I went for the big shovel. By 3pm, Jonathan was laid to rest, entombed by the earth and sealed with the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Celebrate Lent, Celebrate Life
March 1, 2017
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:1-2,12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
(Gospel Text provided below)
In a few minutes, as part of this Ash Wednesday liturgy, I will extend an Invitation to the observance of a Holy Lent. This invitation says in part:
I invite you… to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.
We’ll then say a prayer of preparation, remembering that we have been created out of the dust of the earth. We’ll ask that the ashes placed on our foreheads be a sign of our mortality and penitence. This is often the focal point on this solemn day. A day we are called to begin a season of introspection, repentance, and self-denial.
Yet, I want to point out that in that prayer there is one additional component…
… that we may remember that it is only by [God’s] gracious gift that we are given everlasting life…
I believe that the remembrance of this gracious gift is also an integral part of the day. Today’s gospel passage from Matthew calls us to lean into this gracious gift. It invites us to embrace the special connection we each have with God, and amplifies the realization that everything we have and who we are is GIFT. Read the rest of this entry »
Follow that Star!
January 6, 2017
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
The Feast of the Epiphany
Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
(Gospel Text provided below)
I am, what is often referred to in church-circles, a cradle-Episcopalian, which means I’ve spent my whole life connected to the liturgical cycle of this particular Christian denomination. Through the decades of my life, except for the “new” Prayer Book, adopted when I was young, and the shift from purple to blue as the color for Advent, things haven’t changed very much.
I remember, as a child, looking forward to The Epiphany service with great anticipation. I loved astronomy, so the emphasis on the bright star and the three wise men, sometimes called astronomers, surely contributed to my love for this day. And the atmosphere at church was very different from our usual Sunday morning worship.
On Sundays, the sanctuary was full of light and activity. By contrast, Epiphany usually fell in the middle of the week, and was always an evening service. We’d enter a dimly lit Nave, the darkness amplified by wintery skies, and muted stained-glass windows. We held individual candles – the ones with those little cardboard circles around them, intended to keep the wax from dripping on our hands. The goal – don’t catch anything on fire, especially your sister’s hair.
The procession began with the familiar hymn
“We Three Kings of Orient are bearing gifts, we traverse afar…”
The Value(s) of Joseph
December 18, 2016
Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, GA
4th Sunday of Advent – Year A
Isaiah 7:10-16; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
(Gospel Text provided below)
When I was 24 years old, after a couple of years at one of the Big-8 Accounting firms (now it’s the Big 4), I was hired to be the supervisor of a Commercial Loan Accounting department at First City Bank in Houston. In this role, I’d manage a staff of eight people, all of whom were older than me.
My experience as an auditor was with Oil & Gas clients and a few hospitals. I knew nothing about banking, aside from having a checking account, and even that was fairly new to me. I’d never been a supervisor in a work-setting – so needless to say, being hired into this role was a bit daunting. I joked that the real reason I was hired was because Mary, the department manager, wanted me to play on her inter-bank softball team! But, it’s more likely that Mary hired me, at some level, because of my father.
Now, a few years earlier this would have been a problem. When I trying to get my first job after college, I wanted desperately to be hired independent of my family. My dad was a prominent Houston City Councilman, even a potential contender for Mayor. 
I love my dad, and he’s a huge part of my life, but I really wanted to “make it on my own” like the Mary Tyler Moore theme song!
Yet here I was, just a couple of years later, being hired into a job with no proven experience, and if I’m honest, softball team notwithstanding, it was probably based on my boss’s knowledge of my father. Now, she didn’t know him personally, but what she did know about him, she liked and respected. So, despite all I didn’t bring to the table, Mary took a chance on me – which began my twenty-year career in bank operations. Read the rest of this entry »
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