before boaz, the glistening
fields and gleaning wheat,
there was
cleaving
women pressed in parting –
ruth hot and wet
to naomi’s sorrowing ear: Continue reading “One Flesh”
Author: anniebrock
Genesis 32
They danced in tandem until the heavy,
amber sun broke across the ford,
gathering up the sweat on Jacob’s temples,
and on the winged man’s iridescent palms.
Embodiment and the Christian Life
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
A sermon on John 6:53-63
In reading the Gospels, it can often be easy for us to playfully mock Christ’s disciples when they seem to ask stupid questions of him, or miss his point on core theological issues. But I think I can speak for a lot of folks in saying that I find myself sympathetic to the disciples in this passage as they question Jesus again on his teaching concerning the Eucharist and the physical consumption of his body and blood. “This teaching is difficult,” they say. And indeed it is! Debates about sacramental theology aside, there is something very challenging in what Christ is saying here, and in his repeated assurance that no, he is not speaking metaphorically about his flesh and blood.
Of Thee I Sing
As America scrambles for a freedom that suits its
brackish bigotry,
its citizens scramble to simply make the fraying
ends of their lives meet –
Moral Influence Theory
A poem in a series exploring different Atonement Theories.
Having loved his own
who were in the world,
Christ loved them
to the very end…
Sermon for Two Lost Sons
Sunday, March 6, 2016
The story of the Prodigal Son is one of my favorite stories in the New Testament, and I think that’s because it says so much about the nature of God and his love for us. The love embodied by the father in the story is an active love, a ferocious love. Even before the son in the story has asked for forgiveness, his father literally runs to him. He throws his arms around his son, despite the fact that he has just come directly from a pig sty. He doesn’t say, hey, clean up and then we can hug. Or hey, what do you have to say for yourself? No, he embraces his son. He gets the dirt and mud of his son’s past all over himself. He brings his son into the house and throws him a party to celebrate his homecoming.
God Is Already There: A Sermon on Kalaupapa
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Before my summer intern trip to Kalaupapa, whenever I mentioned to someone here in Hawaii that I was to have the opportunity to visit the Settlement there, I was met with a similar, striking response: I was told that Kalaupapa is a very spiritual place, and that my visit would be transformative. For a while, I felt confused by this sentiment. Of course, the island and the peninsula are beautiful, and the stories of what happened there – the cruelty, the pain, and the isolation – are haunting.
But wouldn’t a better descriptor for the place be something like, heavy? Dark? Intense? Is it the fact of the suffering, I thought, that makes this place so spiritual for so many people? You don’t hear folks describe other historical sites this way. What about or in Kalaupapa, I wondered, inspires such a strong sense of the sacred?
Continue reading “God Is Already There: A Sermon on Kalaupapa”
Penal Substitution
A poem in a series exploring different Atonement Theories.
Amidst the fog
beneath the Olive trees,
bending over dirt
and on his knees, his lips still stained
with Pesach wine,
the Son stooped pleading God’s design.
Christus Victor
A poem in a series exploring different Atonement Theories.
Friday night and we call it Good,
the Son whose arms pitch high to wield
the cornus tree, the arbor pole, the scepter-cross.
Homily for St. Mary Magdalene
Wednesday, April 5 2018
On Sunday, we heard the story of the Resurrection. We heard how the male disciples fled upon finding the empty tomb, but how Mary Magdalene stayed, and how she wept. Jesus found her there, called her by her name, and sent her out to proclaim the good news. Today we hear how her astonishing report, her idle tale, as it was referred to in Luke, was denied and mocked by the disciples and the men who followed Jesus. This denial would become an early omen of Mary’s ultimate fate in the church – her recasting as the unnamed prostitute and sinner who repented with ointment at the feet of Christ. I would note that Pope Gregory’s construction of this woman, the “composite Mary Magdalene,” was the perfect way to rip away her power and witness as a female disciple and apostle. For more than a millennia after his famous 33rd homily, she was consigned as a whore – according to the church and the pervading culture, the very worst a woman could be.
I chose today to preach because Mary Magdalene is a saint very near to my heart.
To Marvelous Light 