Thoughts Along the Journey

    The other day I drove my car when I didn’t have to.   I wanted to join some friends on a bike ride that began and ended about 10 miles from my house.   I could have ridden to the start, ridden 33 miles with the group, and then pedaled the 10 miles back home.   (I’ve done that plenty of times before!)   Instead, I contributed to the climate catastrophe that is already upon us, by burning fossil fuels.   My primary reason for riding my bicycles is because it’s fun!   My second motivation is ecological.   I began riding a bicycle as a way of life in 1970, on the first Earth Day.   That’s when I started riding my Schwinn Typhoon to school every day.   (Today we would call that a “single speed”; back then we called it a “bicycle.”   The coolest kids back then, who rode multiple-geared bikes, road Raleigh three-speeds.)   Bicycling as a way of life, with environmentalism as motivation, has influenced my living arrangements through adulthood.   I served four churches over 40 y

    John 4:5-42          Lent 3          March 12, 2023   St. Martin’s Episcopal Church    Williamsburg, Virginia                 What an abundance of riches for a preacher, today, in the lectionary!   All three readings invite a depth of reflection.             I’m drawn to that great story in the gospel of John.   That’s because we’re journeying through Lent.   The practices of Lent are rooted in our baptisms – and water is such an important element in this story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Think of how Lent returns us to our baptisms. Lent focusses us on practices of repentance.   The call to “Repent!” is often caricatured as something negative, a fearful warning from a pulpit pounding preacher.   But, in fact, repentance is a joyful turning, or, rather, a re-turning.   When you and I repent, we turn away from what makes for death and, instead, we re-turn to God.    Now, listen to how that’s expressed, in the Book of Common Prayer , in the litu

  Following Jesus Into Division   Luke 12:49-56, Psalm 82 Time After Pentecost      Lectionary 20      August 14, 2022 St. Mark Lutheran Church, Yorktown, VA                 “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.”   Is there any gospel passage more unsettling than the one we read today?             “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?   No, I tell you, but rather division!”               These words of Jesus are shocking to those of us who are racially and economically comfortable.   They come near the end of this chapter 12 in the gospel of Luke, which we have been reading through during the past three Sundays.   Chapter 12 is a collection of stories and sayings about living in the kingdom that Jesus has brought into our world, in his flesh and blood.   Jesus teaches and tells stories with the point that we cannot be secure, if we’re relying on ourselves and our stuff!   We are out of control of what might