The Speaking Heart

Year B Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 Psalm 15 James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… There’s a passage in Deuteronomy 6:5-9…  which is a fuller expression of our reading from a few minutes ago…  it’s a prayer we used to recite every week at Friday...

What’s Real and What Isn’t

Year B Proverbs 9:1-6Psalm 34:9-14Ephesians 5:15-20John 6:51-58 May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… The 1999 movie…  The Matrix…  is a story about a society which exists in a computer generated reality…  like one of those computer games where each person has an avatar…  and all of the avatars on...

A Higher Love

Year B 1 Kings 19:4-8Psalm 34:1-8Ephesians 4:25-5:2John 6:35, 41-51 May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… In today’s passage from 1 Kings…  Elijah is despondent…  his success on God’s behalf…  the killing of Baal’s prophets in the Kidron Valley…  means nothing to him now…  he has escaped Jezebel’s reach and...

Three Words in One

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem which was first published in 1889… entitled The Ballad of East and West. Although I don’t remember it ever being read to me, I do remember from childhood the first line… it goes “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” I wonder if I...