Irreverently Reverend

  Ordinary Time:  first Sunday at a new congregation Did you know that Ann Arbor is where the University of Michigan is?           I grew up in Indiana; until about February of this year, the university was about all I knew about Ann Arbor and I barely understood even that.   My big rivalry was Purdue versus Indiana University (go Hoosiers!), not Spartans and Wolverines.   I got my first master’s from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and served a church in Bay City, neatly bracketing the center of the state and not learning a thing about cities like Ann Arbor other than there was a university and, apparently, a really good deli.           “To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae,” begins Paul in this letter probably written some 30 or 40 years after Christ’s resurrection.   “In our prayers for you we always thank God…for we have hea...

  Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  2  through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  3  And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance,  4  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  5  and hope does not put us to shame , because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (NRSVUE)             It is a strange thing—and it was not my intention—that my first sermon and my last at St. Luke’s both come from Paul’s letter to the Romans.   This is what comes of keeping to the lectionary; it is fairly consistent in its connecting patterns.           Romans, whil...

  Sixth Sunday of Easter Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  2  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  3  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; 4  he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” 5  And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”  6  Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the sp...

  Fourth Sunday of Easter After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.  10  They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” 11  And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,  12  singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” 13  Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”  14  I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have wash...