Month: July 2020

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, Listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. [Isaiah 55:1b-2]. Last Tuesday, I had my “AWV.” For you non-Medicare folks, “AWV” stands for “annual wellness visit.” As many of you know, an AWV isn’t an annual physical; the stern lady at the front desk will remind you if you use the wrong words. “Medicare doesn’t reimburse for physicals; it’s a wellness visit.” I passed with flying colors, but that isn’t the reason I’m mentioning…

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” [Matthew 13:45-46]. For those of us sticking to the Gospel readings during this hot and humid July, we’ve been bombarded or blessed — it depends upon one’s viewpoint — with powerful parables of Jesus. Two weeks ago, there was the parable of the farmer who apparently didn’t care how he broadcast his seed. He risked sowing some seed where a “successful” crop was unlikely. Last week, we had a somewhat nonchalant farmer who, when told that an enemy…

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like someone who planted good seed in his field. While people were sleeping, an enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat and went away. When the stalks sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared.” “The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them?’” [Matthew 13:24-26, 28b]. Jane sometimes says, “Tom has 4,012 stories and he tells them over and over again.” One of my absolute favorites occurred a bit more than three years ago. In March 2017, grandson Everett — son of Blair and Sarah — was to be baptized at Trinity…

”But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ …” [Matthew 11:16-17]. Folks in and around Jerusalem during the first century A.D., like folks who live today, were surrounded by choices. Some chose to accommodate the Roman authorities by keeping their heads down and paying their taxes. Others took jobs collecting those taxes. Some devoted their lives to theological study and to Yahweh; others rarely graced the Temple or synagogue, devoting their lives instead to Bacchus, the Roman god of…