Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Ash Wednesday reminds me that the church year is a cycle, a never-ending loop of time where we experience several different sets of emotions and spiritual events. We have the anticipation of Advent and Christmas, the wonder of Epiphany, the work of the Spirit at and after Pentecost, the elation of Easter, and now the sober reflection of Lent. Over the years, I have worked to make Lent a little different each year to keep it from becoming routine and stale, something that only lasts for the first two weeks. The tradition of Lent has been to confess sins and repent of them, but that seems too narrow when I confess my sins daily in Morning Prayer and on Sunday at the Eucharist. There is a necessary element of looking deeply and honestly at our failings, things we did that we shouldn’t have done, things we didn’t do that we should have done, and those are not part of daily devotions. This is an essential part of the Lenten experience, but not one that should lead us to wallow in our broken...

Sermon for Epiphany V, 2025, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY. Text: Matthew 5:13-20 I have been thinking about salt a lot recently, mostly as a question “Do you have any salt for sale?” at various hardware stores or places like Walmart or Meijer. Salt is a valuable thing to have at specific times, like when you need to sharpen flavors in a meal or melt snow and ice. So, when Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth,” I want to say, “Yeah, but I need to get out of my driveway. Is shoveling snow not enough to make a difference in the world?” Jesus also says that I am the light of the world, which is nice, but sunlight is better at melting snow than I am using salt. And then Jesus says he has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and I start to think that maybe he’s going to do something about the people who run the stop sign at the end of my street. But the Gospels are not about seasoning food, or dealing with snow and ice, or enforcing someone’s la...