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He will Come Again in Glory: Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

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We have come to the Sunday after Ascension. Jesus has been taken into Heaven. Not in rays of gold but covered in a cloud. It reminds us we always see God through the cloud of our own unknowing, and anything we say, even the deepest and wisest words, will always be partial. In that spirit, I’d like to raise what I see as the three themes in today’s readings: 1.      The first is our expectations: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 2.      The second is suffering: But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. 3.      Which leads to the third theme of Glory: I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have b
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Dispatches from the Burning Bush

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I've been dreaming about the end of the world. Of things going up in flames. Leaving home. Walking down cool gray roads with my sister and my dog. Driving between tall pines which are burning but not consumed. Seabirds starving because there are no fish to eat. A yellow haired man saying, "There are plenty of fish. Take and eat to your heart's content!" I took up these themes at a more hopeful moment in my first blog. The twenty-first century was young. Many of us trusted that the ability to name an issue marked the first step toward solving it. In 2002, I attended a retreat at Mt. Calvary Monastery in Santa Barbara with author Barry Lopez. If its subject was beauty, Barry's opening sentences traveled a different direction: poetic, global and dire. "The news is not good. One billion Chinese are poised to turn the keys in the ignitions of their cars." During that same year, a spectacular dust storm off the Gobi Desert crossed the Pacific to turn up
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