As you may know, I like to have a joke in my sermons from time to time. I recently found out that today on Easter Sunday, it is even more appropriate. It is actually a long standing tradition in some Eastern Orthodox churches for the priests to come prepared with a joke on Easter Sunday.…
Jonah reminds us that, as with any relationship, a real relationship with God brings forth many emotions, including sometimes anger. For anger only arises with those we care about the most. But alas, Jonah’s anger is not the last word, because God always has the last word. God ends Jonah’s story by saying in so…
Today’s reading describes the Wedding at Cana; the first of Jesus’ seven miracles in the Gospel of John, where Jesus turns water into wine. We correctly use the term miracle, but it is one of those words that has been clouded by many false associations. I prefer the old Armenian word, Nshank, which simply means…
[Jesus Christ] is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. (He 1:3) Author Hugh Halter opens his book Flesh: Bringing the Incarnation Down to Earth, with a surprising scene: he’s taking his teen daughter to get her first tattoo. While…
“What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” –Mk 10:9 Our church operates in the world of contracts, but we aim for something higher than contractual relationships with each other. Can you imagine what would happen if we had a no-show policy for church? At $50 per person, per Sunday, we would…
‘Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ –Mk 4:40 Some people and some priests truly are disciplinarians, some are thinkers, some are all heart. A friend of ours from Yerevan told us that when she lived there, she and her friends knew all the priests and their personalities, and would pick where…
Indeed all that glitters is not gold, and where did this gold medal come from anyway? Well it was not from the original Greek Olympics, whose first place prize which was not a gold medal but a laurel wreath. These crowns of flowers are splendidly beautiful today, but they are gone tomorrow—a wise reminder that…