Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Tag: Apocrypha

Of Storytelling and Belief – Sermon for Proper 20, RCL Year B

“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”

That was the headline on the website of Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the national public broadcaster in the Republic of Ireland, on September 11. What the candidate in the U.S. presidential debate the night before had said in full was:

In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.[1]

As I’m sure you know, in the twelve days since the debate, the people of Springfield, Ohio, have been through hell. They’ve been put under a media microscope; white supremacists have marched through the town; there are have been more than 30 bomb threats against schools and public buildings.

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Changing Clothes: If I Were Preaching, Advent 2 (9 December 2018)

“Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.”[1]

If I were preaching on the Second Sunday of Advent this year, I think I would select the first of the two options for the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, which is actually from the Jewish apocrypha.

Years ago (many years ago) when I was 18 years old, I worked in a small 100-bed community hospital in Southern California. Initially, I was a janitor (“housekeeper” in the hospital jargon of the time) but within a few months I was able to take the job of orderly.

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