Homilies and bulletins

Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; 1 Thess 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22 PRAY… Good morning! If we haven’t met yet, my name is Ben. It won’t surprise you to know I’m here today because Miles is off with many of you on retreat at Shrine Mont. I’m very aware that the people of Grace are passing through a very significant season of great love and great loss…in the deaths of Bill, Ann and now David and in the tender care of their families, along with the pending retirement of your rector who

Gospel of Matthew 22:1-14 My eyes keep getting worse. I got a new glasses prescription back in November, and already I can tell, I need to go back. And when I do go back, and the doctor asks her series of binary questions “which is better–1 or 2? Now, which is better, 2, or 3?” I get analysis paralysis, fussing over the idea of a perfect solution for my imperfect vision. With a text as layered as this parable, and so many interpretations on the books, I get analysis paralys

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46 19th Sunday after Pentecost A; 10.04.26; G. Miles Smith+ The gospel reading today is another Jesus-story…with sharp edges. In this case, Jesus told an angry story directed at criticizing the chief priests and Pharisees…who were constantly finding fault with Jesus. Jesus spent a lot of time in synagogues and visiting the Temple in Jerusalem. So, you could say, in terms of today, that Jesus spent a lot of time

Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32 G. Miles Smith+ When you are a priest…you may enter into peoples’ lives and places…in ways that…when I think about it…can be extra-ordinary. Sometimes the familiarity of priestly things obscures…just how extra-ordinary it really is. We have all heard plenty of priests talking in different scenarios and doing liturgical things…so we are not surprised. But perhaps it would serve us all well…to consider just how unlikely…all this real

Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32 G. Miles Smith+ You’re either going to love it…or hate it. And even if you love it…sometimes you’re probably still going to hate it. And yet…there…is our salvation. I’m talking about the truth of God… as told by the hymn…or poem…to Christ in the Philippians reading. Whether Paul composed it himself, or was quoting from others…this hymn-poem is one of the oldest forms of a creedal statement about Christ in the New Testament and in C