I don’t remember being diagnosed with diabetes. I was only three when it happened and so having the condition was just who I was and I didn’t really think much about it as I got a little older. It wasn’t that anyone suggested that being diagnosed with diabetes was a result of sin, as Jesus’s disciples suggest of the blind man in our Gospel lesson this morning; but eventually I understood that people somehow saw my disease as problematic, or limiting.  So when I came to our re

We often hear words like freedom or free will thrown around in various circles, so much so that it can be hard to define what exactly freedom is and so what it means. This matter of freedom is at the heart of Jesus’s approach to the woman at the well we hear about in our Gospel lesson this morning. We hear that Jesus is sitting at a well because he’s tired out by his journey. While he’s there a Samaritan woman comes along and Jesus asks her to give him a drink. This is an unu

One of my biggest pet peeves - exacerbated by youtube/tiktok/social media influencers - is when people try to domesticate God. Inevitably, they do this by taking passages of Scripture - without reference to other parts of Scripture understood through Jesus’s own life, death and resurrection - and apply them to a current situation. This is a form of idolatry that is technically called, eisegesis (reading a passage out of context). A good example of this has happened a few time

This morning we hear the profound story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness as described in Matthew’s Gospel. We need to recall that this event actually takes place right after Jesus is baptized by John, which of course we heard about right at the beginning of Epiphany. So picture it: Jesus is there with John and just as was reaffirmed last week at his transfiguration, we hear God the Father declare, “Jesus is my son, with whom I am well pleased,” and the Holy Spirit desce

One of the most influential fathers of the Christian Church, as well as of Western thought, St. Augustine, understood Jesus’s Transfiguration that we hear about today, as a necessary, yet temporary, glimpse of divine glory designed to strengthen the disciples for the suffering to come (suffering not just criticism or name calling; but arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution, all for their affirmation and proclamation that Jesus is God).  So Jesus has decided to take three

Let me begin bluntly: your vocation (job) as a Christian, is not to deliver people from their sins with what you say or with what you do. Do you know why that’s the case? Because you are not God. Our gospel lesson this morning tells us that we are to be salt and light for other people not to see us - for we are not the food or the object that light illuminates; that would be Jesus - rather we are that the substance, salt and light, that entices others to seek Christ.  This mi

I want to tell you a little secret. Are you ready for it? Those who boast of their own power; those who rely on their might - whether of wealth, of words, or of weapons - to accomplish things in this world, especially the will of God, will not, through these means, inherit the kingdom of God.  Listen to Jesus’s warning to all whom he encounters - especially the religious and political ruling class - as he goes out on his three year mission: “Beware of false prophets who come

This morning we hear that soon after John is arrested, Jesus sets off to Galilee. He doesn’t do this to avoid confrontation. I mean, we know that ultimately he will confront those who refuse to recognize him and so hang him on a Cross. We also know that he has a mission to accomplish before that final confrontation occurs. And it needs to start in Galilee, apparently. Why? Because this is part of God’s promise unveiled in the Words of his Prophets, as we heard this morning in

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” John the baptist shouts, as he sees Jesus coming toward him. Last week we heard John declare in Matthew’s Gospel, that he was surprised that Jesus wanted to be baptised by him. And yet he fulfilled Jesus’s request and in doing so, he got to see the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and heard the Father’s voice declare that Jesus was his beloved, with whom he was well pleased. And so John confirms again in John’s Gosp

Last week we celebrated Epiphany: the revelation to Gentiles just like us, that God fulfilled his promise to gather all nations to him by sending his Son into the world. We see in his birth that Jesus comes not merely as God, but is born a true human infant who will grow into a true human man. And this leads us to the strange episode of Jesus’s Baptism we hear in today’s Gospel lesson. Why on earth would God’s Son Jesus, who of course is God himself, be baptised by John, a me