Episodes
Friday Nov 25, 2016
Wake Up! A Reflection for The First Sunday of Advent, Year A
Friday Nov 25, 2016
Friday Nov 25, 2016
On this First Sunday of Advent, we retrace our first stirrings of faith, our first commitment to Christ. We are reminded to stay awake… awake to the brevity of earthly life, awake to the promise of eternal life, awake to God’s purpose and possibilities. Wake-up. And smell the roses of God’s grace all around us. Not a bad resolution for Advent...
Friday Nov 18, 2016
What Kind of King? - A Reflection for the Feast of Christ the King, Year C
Friday Nov 18, 2016
Friday Nov 18, 2016
Lots of kings have come from humble origins. David, the shepherd turned warrior, came to the throne from the field of battle. Napoleon vaulted from outcast immigrant to Emperor of France. Mythical Arthur pulled a sword from a stone and went from bumpkin to monarch. In his wake came a score of Henry’s, George’s, Edward’s and William’s. Their ascent to the throne was marked with solemnity, heralded by choirs, wildly cheered by euphoric throngs. That’s what the world expects of a king...
Saturday Nov 12, 2016
Happy Endings - A Reflection for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C
Saturday Nov 12, 2016
Saturday Nov 12, 2016
Dear Friends,
Our Church year is ending. Next week we will proclaim Cristo Rey… Christ the King… the Reign of Christ… the object of the Christian narrative. But as we are instructed in this gospel, that reign will come in with a bang, not with a whimper. And Luke’s gospel is not the most apocalyptic by far. Both Mark and John illustrate more graphically the perils that will signal the end of days… while Luke’s gospel predicts an initial apocalypse on a smaller, more immediate scale… the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.
Christ then goes on to tell us of the turmoil that will plague the earth:Nation will rise against nation… there will be great earthquakes… famines and plagues. Jesus puts Christians on notice that we will be singled out for persecution, betrayal and hatred: all because of (his)name. But then, he stands this doomsday narrative on its head, promising that: Not a hair on your head will perish.
But how can that be? How can we escape an all-consuming apocalypse? How can we survive mortality? And how do we dodge the bullet of bigotry aimed at every active Christian? Over thousands of years and countless generations, Christ’s saving message comes to us with the freshness of morning, as he assures us: By your endurance you will gain your souls. The operative word that leaps from the page is endurance.
To many, endurance conjures up images of marathon runners struggling towards a finish line, then collapsing in complete exhaustion. Is that what lies in store for us… physically and spiritually hanging on? Dragging ourselves into heaven… is that God’s plan for us?
Hardly! We are here to rejoice in the Lord always… in good times and bad, in celebration and in persecution. In fact, that is the only way that we can truly endure… by faithfully connecting with the Lord everyday, by humbly asking his help and aligning our attitudes and actions with his guidance… particularly as it is revealed in his gospel.
The gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ. And the best of the good news is that we are not in this race by ourselves. Jesus is with us every step of the way. We need not rely on training, conditioning or dieting for our endurance. His grace is the source of our strength. To endure, we must constantly seek it, cling to it, live in it, rejoice in it.
Because Jesus is the truth, he always tells us the truth, even when it is hard for us to find good news in dire predictions. Luke 21 is the last chapter before the Passion. Jesus clearly sees what he will endure for our sake. But he looks beyond his looming agony to tells us what we too must endure. To carry us home, Jesus will soon carry his cross. To follow him home, each of us must carry our own cross. For some, the cross is relatively light: minor inconveniences, petty prejudices, snide remarks, negative peer pressure, constantly navigating a world of vanishing values. For others the cross literally means martyrdom, either by the sword or by institutional prejudice. A recent study found that fifty countries had official anti-Christian statutes and practices with sanctions ranging from death to imprisonment, from harassment to expulsion.
Christian life is more than a marathon. At times it can also be a deadly obstacle course. Expect to be tripped. Expect to fall. Endurance means more than just chugging along. We must regularly pick ourselves up and get back on track. Our faith will be shaken. Our sins will betray us. For endurance, we look not only to the cross, we look to the Resurrection. That’s because we know how this story ends… not in tragedy, but in triumph. That is the source of our strength, our hope, our joy. As Paul instructs us in Hebrews 12: Lets us run with perseverance…looking to Jesus…who endured the cross… so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.
With every passing day, the odds grow longer that our generation will not be the one to face the apocalypse. But the odds are certain that each of us will face our own personal end of days. And in the face of that certainty, we cling to the cross of Christ… the ark of our salvation. If we take nothing else from this gospel, take the word of Jesus that even in mortality, we will never perish. Trust in him. Live in his love.
And so another Church year approaches its conclusion. Thank you, Jesus. In your saving grace, we rejoice and endure… because we know… that individually or collectively… our ending will be a happy one. We know we are risen with you!
This has been Fr. David Sellery from St. John’s Church in Salisbury, to learn more, visit me at davidsellery.org or follow me Itunes, Facebook or Twitter.
God love you,
Friday Nov 04, 2016
Blessed Windows - A Reflection for The Feast of All Saint's, Year C
Friday Nov 04, 2016
Friday Nov 04, 2016
This morning’s gospel presents us with a litany of the “blessed.” And what better way to celebrate the Feast of the Blessed… the Day of All Saints… than by revisiting Christ’s recipe for blessedness. In fact, some say that The Sermon on the Mount is a job description for sainthood… an in-flight check list to join Jesus on the journey home to the Father...