Happy New Year! We begin again, here in 2022.
And as we begin this new year, there is a collective hope that it will be different. There is a hope that this year, we will finally deal with the coronavirus, or it will genuinely just go away, so that when 2023 rolls around, we will no longer be wearing masks, or social distancing, or worrying about a new variant, or doing any of the things that have become part of our lives in the past two years.
This is what we hoped a year ago, at the beginning of 2021. We were glad that 2020 was behind us, the year that Covid spread throughout the world, and we all thought that surely by the time this New Year’s came, Covid would be gone, and life would have returned to our so-called “normal.”
Read MoreI have some breaking news for you.
You know what breaking news stories are. Breaking news is a story that we are not expecting, that suddenly explodes upon the world. Like when you’re watching a program on TV, and a news flash appears across the bottom of the screen, or when some media outlet sends you alerts on your smartphone. They always say, “Breaking News,” and then give you a headline and a few sentences about some major event.
Read MoreIn the year 2021, in the second year of the leadership of Micheál Martin as Taoiseach, in a coalition government, when Michael D. Higgins was President of Ireland and Leo Varadkar was Tánaiste, when the Most Rev. John McDowell was Archbishop of Armagh in the Church of Ireland, and during the vacancy in the episcopate of the newly created United Dioceses of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe, towards the end of the second year of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, the word of God once again came through John, son of Zechariah, to the people of Ireland, and not just of Ireland but throughout the world, wherever Christians gathered to worship on the Second Sunday of Advent.
Read MoreThe very next words in the Gospel reading we just heard are from Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Jesus has been brought to him to be on trial. And Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?”
What is truth indeed? It’s a big question in today’s world, for fake news and conspiracy theories and questions as to what is truth abound everywhere.
Read MoreToday’s service is a memorial service, as we gather to remember all those people from our parishes, as well as family members and loved ones from beyond our parishes, who have died in the past two years.
Read MoreOur Psalm today starts off with this verse: “Give judgment for me, O Lord, for I have walked with integrity; I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered.”
We are reading this psalm because of the passage from the Book of Job that we started off with. On Sundays, the psalm we read is always meant as a response to the Old Testament reading, so they will fit together in some way. And our Old Testament reading, from Job, tells of a very righteous man. He has done everything right.
Read More“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time.” So the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians. Paul almost always ends his letters with advice to the people, the church, he is writing to. He gives advice about how to live as a Christian, because believing in Christ was considered a new way of living life. In fact, in the earliest years after Jesus died and was resurrected, living a life following Christ was called “the Way.” It was intended as a way of life.
Read MoreWhen I sat down to prepare this sermon, I was going to skip the story about King David. It did not seem necessary to what I had in mind to preach. But then I thought, we’ve been reading about David for weeks now, in stories that tear at the heart and stick in the mind: stories about him being just a lad and killing Goliath, and the story about Uriah the Hittite, David’s warrior, whom David has killed so he can marry Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. …
Read MoreWouldn’t it be nice to live in an ideal world? Wouldn’t it be nice to be free of all the things that trouble us?
Read MoreOne purpose of holidays is to give us rest. Rest from our work. Rest from school. Rest from the routine we live in. Holidays are to give us something different, so that we can have a break — so that we can rest.
These days, by this time, we might need something different. After 18 months of one lockdown after another, it is glorious to be able to go out again — to see people, to eat at a restaurant, to travel farther than 2 or even 5 kilometers from one’s own house.
But it seems people are working very hard at their resting.
Read MoreDavid and Goliath. Now there’s a story every child in Sunday school learns: how the lad David (he was perhaps a teenager) came up against the giant Goliath and killed him with a pebble fired from a slingshot. All the men of Israel’s army were afraid of this gigantic Philistine.
Read MoreWe might talk about abiding by Covid-19 guidelines. It means to follow them, to act in accordance with the guidelines we have been given for living safely in the midst of this pandemic. The readings this week use the word “abide” several times, but it means something much deeper than just following rules. It means to let something dwell in you so deeply, to become so much a part of you, that it changes who you are.
Read MoreA news report came out a few days ago that has fascinated me. It is the ranking of 149 countries of the world according to how happy its people are. Finland came in at #1, for the fourth year in a row, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
Read MoreIf you have been outside working, and you get all hot and thirsty, what do you do when you come inside? Perhaps reach for a nice glass of something cold to drink. Oh, sorry, with all the hail and sleet we have been having lately here in Ireland, perhaps I should say, if you are outside and get caught in the wind and the wintry mix, what do you do when you come inside? Perhaps reach for a nice hot cup of tea, or something else steaming.
Read MoreSomeone once asked me why I follow Christ. Why would I choose to do this? It was a person who was struggling with church and faith, perhaps wanting to believe but not quite willing to commit. I think the person recognized that faith and religion were important to me and was curious what had made me take this path. I was surprised by the answer that automatically came out of my mouth. I said, “Because Christ rescued me.”
Read MoreThere’s a joke that I know has been making the circuit in Adare recently, and perhaps farther afield. It is this: “For Lent this year, I’ve given up going to the pub.” Sometimes we have our Lenten disciplines imposed on us from the outside.
Read MoreOne of the things I hear from many people I talk to these days is what strange times we are living in. “Strange.” “Surreal.” “Peculiar.” These are the words people use to describe our Covid-19 era. And something that makes these times so strange to us is that our ways of viewing the world are being flipped.
Read MoreThis video was made for the virtual assembly of St. Nicholas National School on 29 January 2021.
Read MoreOne of the things that has happened to me since I married Kirk is that I have come to love watching team sports. My favorites have become rugby and American football (which we have found a way to watch here in Ireland). In addition to liking the usual things — the competition, the athleticism, watching my favorite team win — I have realized I also enjoy watching examples of leadership. How do the coaches and managers motivate and lead the team? How do the key players work with the rest of the team. Today’s Bible readings raise some thoughts about leadership.
Read MoreFirst of all, I hope that you listening to this are well, and that if you are not well, that the healing power and the comfort of God might come to you. These are trying times that we are living in, and I know that those of us here in Ireland are concerned about the rise in numbers of Covid-19 infections. During such trying times, we have a unique opportunity to do something that we might normally avoid doing: listening to God.
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