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Showing posts from February, 2014

Christian Tonglen

The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany 23 Feb 2014 Padre Christian Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18 Psalm 119:33-40 1Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23 Matthew 5:38-48 For the better part of 30 years I wasn’t very good at turning the other cheek. As a kid, when Mark Lee tried out his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle moves on me against my will, I ducked a reptilian heal kick and threw him into a fence breaking his arm. Later in adolescence, on a Boy Scout trip, when John Frye caught me in the temple with a rock and then ran over to check on me, I jumped back up and popped him in the mouth. And the beat went on, I hit a kid with a crow bar in High School who tried to vandalize a nativity scene I was building, and in college I punched a guy in the neck who tried to shake me down for cigarettes. I grew up believing you met evil for evil, and violence for violence. So when the Twin Towers fell, it was no surprise I volunteered to take an eye for eye (or as the rest of that saying from Exodus

Parking on Grace

The Rev. Robert P. Travis Epiphany 3 rd Sunday Sermon  – 8:00am and 10:30am Church of the Ascension, Knoxville TN RCL Epiphany 6 Year A 2/16/2014 Scripture Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 119:1-8, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, Matthew 5:21-37 Sermon Text: We have a bit of a parking problem here at Ascension. So those of you who get here early each week might not realize it, but those of you who are like my parents, who came last week, and were about 10 minutes late for the 10:30 service and struggle to get places even on time, much less early, know that many Sundays our parking lot fills up, it’s a good problem to have, and our vestry and leadership have been working on the options for a while, but one thing that I and other staff members do, to help alleviate the problem, is park elsewhere on Sunday mornings. I for one, love to park just across Agnes, on the Avenue called Grace. And a while back it struck m

Coming Face to Face with God

The Rev. Amy Morehous Feast of the Presentation Church of the Ascension February 2, 2014 Let us too stand in the Temple and hold God's Son and embrace him; and that we may deserve leave to withdraw and start on our way towards a better land, let us pray to God, the all-powerful, and to the little Jesus himself, whom we so much want to speak to and hold in our arms. His are glory and power now and always. Amen.                                               - Origen c. 184-254 Today was once one of the great feast days in the church - it's the Feast of the Presentation. It became commonly known as 'Candlemas' because it was most frequently celebrated by blessing the candles for the coming year, in honor of and thanksgiving for "the light for the revelation to the Gentiles." It is a celebration of the Light of the World coming into the Temple, into the holiest place in all Israel. One of the first writers to describe this early church feast was