Irreverently Reverend

  Fifth Sunday in Lent The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  2  He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.  3  He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”  4  Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.  5  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  6  I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7  So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone....

  Baptism of the Lord As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18 So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison. 21 Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form lik...

  Trinity Sunday Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you . And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age .” (NRSVue)             A congregant said to a colleague of mine once that she clearly needed to have some extra training as a pastor because the congregation wasn’t growing.   My colleague asked what the congregant was doing to grow in their own faith and the person looked at her with scorn; the purpose of a pastor is to grow a church, they said, and to make sure there were people to step up to take over leade...