Innerdriving

Lent 3C Exodus 3:1-15 March 24, 2019 St. Mark’s Boligee Whenever we read any story about Moses, I cannot help but think about Charlton Heston.  If you are too young to remember, he played Moses in the Hollywood version of the 10 Commandments.  So, when I read today’s Old Testament Lesson about the Burning Bush I thought about Heston - in the role of Moses - with his long flowing hair and gray beard and if someday when I go to heaven – if the real Moses doesn’t look like Charlton Heston then I am going to be really disappointed.  I have always wanted to have one of those burning bush experiences.  I want to see an angel morning’s story from the Book of Exodus.  I want to hear God!  Moses – however – was not expecting to see much of anything that day in the land of Midian.  He was herding the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro.  He sees the burning bush BUT what is far more startling is that God speaks to Moses.  He tells Mose...

Lent 2C Luke 13:31-35 St. Matthias March 17, 2019            Mary Margaret Murphy once told me she was my worst nightmare.  I was 10 years old and she was 12 and it was on the school bus.  She was in the 6 th grade – a senior at Woodland Hills Elementary.  Next year she would be a teenager and in Junior High School.  She was taller than me.  I was sitting in the same seat on the bus where I sat almost every day.  My best friend, Keith, was sitting next to me like he ALSO did almost every day.  Our problem was that Mary Margaret wanted our seat.  There was this new 6 th grade boy sitting directly across from us AND she had a crush on him.  She told us to move.  We didn’t.  The boy in the seat across from us got off the bus without so much as even noticing Mary Margaret and it was then that she promised that my days were numbered.  She didn’t look like she was k...

Lent 1C Luke 4:1-13 St. Matthias March 10, 2019            I can resist any thing except temptation!   Oscar Wilde wrote that in one of his plays and every Lent I remember it.  I can give up many things in the first days of Lent with great success.  But isn’t it funny how you think about what you give up far more than what you didn’t?  If I give up chocolate – all I think about is chocolate.  The same goes for dessert, red meat, and television.  I used to give up Brussel Sprouts for Lent even though I had never eaten a Brussel Sprout in my life.  They didn’t look like something I would like.  All that ended a couple of weeks ago.  I ate 4 Brussel Sprouts, I didn’t like them.             No one likes temptation.  It’s what’s at the end of the rainbow that is so appealing.  Or at least it seems so.  That’s t...

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C Luke 9:28-36 St. Matthias March 3, 2019            Imagine snow - on fire.  I’ve seen it.  It was in North Dakota and my deputy crew commander, Mike Kettering, and I were driving out to Hotel Launch Control Center.  A truck had crashed and there was a fuel spill.  The temperature was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 degrees below zero at the time.   Some of the fuel caught fire – and as fast as the snow melted it would freeze again.  So, what we saw was snow on fire!  It didn’t look like fire usually does. It was more of a blue flame like you see on the stove.  We sat there and watched until the State Trooper motioned us on.  It was strange.            Think about the strangest sight YOU have ever seen, and this would be something like what the disciples saw in our Gospel read...