Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Lev 19: 1-2, 15-18; Ps 1; 1 Thess 2:1-8; Matt 22: 34-46 The Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister This has been a tough few weeks. Something about this war in the Holy Land seems to have tipped many of us into a space of extreme fragility. I’m seeing it in conversations, in […]
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Ezek 18:1-4, 25-32; Ps 25; Phil 2:1-13; Matt 21: 23-32 Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister One of the more perplexing — and sometimes frustrating — things about Jesus is that he taught in parables. Time and again, we open the Bible, seeking guidance or moral clarity for some situation in our […]
The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Gen 50:15-21; Ps 103:1-13; Rom 14:1-12; Matt 18: 21-35 Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister, ODM A few years ago, when I was being trained to companion people in their spiritual seeking, one of our teachers said something which has become a touchstone for me: The problem with forgiveness is that we […]
Transfiguration Sunday Daniel 7:9-10; 13-14; Ps 99; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Luke 9:28-36 The Rev. Dr. Deborah Meister, ODM There’s a moment I always savor when I am lucky enough to get to the country for a few days. It’s the first clear night, after supper is ended, after the dishes have been washed and put […]
Pentecost 5 Jer 28:5-9; Ps 89:1-4, 15-18; Rom 6:12-23; Matt 10:40-42 Rev’d Dr Deborah Meister, ODM One of my favorite hours of radio, ever, was an episode of “On Being” called Whale Songs and Elephant Loves. (https://onbeing.org/programs/katy-payne-in-the-presence-of-elephants-and-whales/). It was an extended conversation between the host, Krista Tippet, and Katy Payne, a musician who was actually […]
Pentecost 4 Jer 20:7-13; Ps 69: 7-18 Rom 6:1b-11; Matt 10:24-39 Rev’d Dr Deborah Meister, ODM All week, I have been struggling with anger. Like many of you, I read with increasing horror about the migrant tragedy which unfolded off the coast of Greece on June 14th: hundreds of people dead, few rescued, while the […]
Corpus Christi Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; Ps 147: 12-15, 19-20; I Cor 10:16-17; John 6:51-58 Rev’d Dr Deborah Meister, ODM Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi, a feast first proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas, who felt that Maundy Thursday was so tightly focused on the impending death of Christ that it would be helpful […]
Easter 3A Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Ps 116: 1-3, 10-17; I Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35 The Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister I was in my final year of seminary the day the planes crashed into the World Trade Center. Once we had taken it in, my classmates and I moved around in a kind of daze. The […]
Easter Day Jer 31:1-6; Ps 118: 1-2, 14-24, Acts 10:34-43; Matt 28:1-10 The Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister Christos anesti! He is risen! We gather here at the dawn of a miraculous day. Life has returned to the dead and hope to a troubled world. The order we thought we knew has been upended; the power of […]
The Second Sunday of Lent Gen 12:1-4a; Ps 121; Rom 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17 The Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister When I was a little child, my stepfather taught me to love the ocean. He would wade into the ocean; bend down; pick up a rock, glistening with water, and then cry out, Teeny pebble, teeny pebble! […]
Third Sunday after Epiphany Isaiah 9:1-4; Ps 27:1, 5-13; I Cor 1:10-18; Matt 4:12-33 The Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister As you may have seen in the news, the Church of England finally decided to be more supportive of gay and lesbian Christians this week. Inching forward into a new reality, they stopped short of blessing marriages, […]
The Twenty Second Sunday After Pentecost Job 19:23-27a; Ps 17:1-9; 2 Thess 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38 The Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister Today’s collect reminds us that all scriptures were written for our learning, but some are more fun to preach than others. Today’s Gospel passage would not be one of them. Each time I encounter […]