Romans 11: (1-2) 13-15, 29-32 (links validated 7/11/23)
Quick Locator
Readings | Related Pages | Resources | Information |
|
|
New Resources
Sermon Starters (Proper 15A)(2023)
Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour tells the story of Jim, his widow Annie and Sister St. Savor. When Jim takes his own life, the Roman Catholic Church denies him both a funeral mass and burial in its cemetery. His widow Annie “well understood that there would be no rules at all if there were no punishment for failure to follow them. Like any good mother, the Church had to cuff its children when they misbehaved. Make the punishment fit the crime. “He’d murdered himself and murdered something in her as well. Who could argue for leniency? Who could expect absolution? Sister St. Savor did, of course. But the woman … had a mad heart. Mad for mercy, perhaps” (italics mine).
Resources from 2017 to 2022
Proper 15A (2017)
For some reason Romans 11 and its words about God as at once kind and severe put me in mind of the wizard Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Gandalf was often a bit of mystery to the Hobbits who revered him. He could be at turns deeply kind and mirthful and yet sometimes apparently rather severe and curt. Yet in the end the Hobbits learned a deeper truth about Gandalf: he was fundamentally kind and good and if at times there was a severity about him, it did not last long and even this was somehow rooted in Gandalf’s bottom line desire to see everyone flourishing. He was severe about what blocked delight and goodness but it was his basic kindness and love that drove everything he did.
Resources from the Archives
God Is Not Fickle
("George Bush, the governor of Texas and candidate for President endorsed in Des Moines recently what he called 'English-Plus' school programs. English Plus programs balance the need to have children learn English with a recognition of the value of other languages and cultures...")The Day Paul's Letter Came to the Church of Rome
Scroll down the page to August 14th for this resource.