Wholeness: Piece by Piece Matthew 11:2-11 I grew up surrounded by a very large extended family.  My earliest memories of Christmas include the annual family Christmas party to which every distant relative within a reasonable distance would come.  The highlight of the party every year was the arrival of Santa Claus, which, while extraordinarily exciting the first few years of my memory, admittedly got a little bit, well, contrived, the older I got.  As one of the oldest kids in... Read more

A Revolutionary Peace Matthew 3:1-12  The waiting has begun…can you feel Advent in the air, a sense of hope and expectation, the allowing for a possibility that God’s dream for our world might be unfolding all around us?  Today, the second Sunday of Advent, our ideal world, the world God intends for us, is a world of peace. In other words, it’s a world nothing like where we live now, where wars rip apart the fabric of nations, where ethnic... Read more

Beloved Calvary member, Sallie Tupitza, who died November 23, 2010, was remembered today in a private family service.  A service of thanksgiving and celebration for her life, which will include our whole community, will be held at a later date to be announced.  What follows is the short homily offered today. When I was a child growing up in Hawaii my parents would send me every summer to stay with my grandparents in Chicago, to give me an experience of... Read more

Neighborhood Watch Matthew 24:36-44  Happy new year, everybody!  Happy new church year, that is.  Today is the first Sunday of Advent and the start of an entirely new year of life together as the community of faith.  Today, everywhere in the world, various expressions of the Christian church are beginning again, a whole new year, a new adventure of the life of discipleship.  Perhaps you were unaware that for the past several months we’ve been slogging our way through Ordinary... Read more

I first read some version of this prayer more than ten years ago.  It was written by a friend and mentor of mine, Rev. Sharlande Sledge, who probably was the first woman I ever saw in a pulpit wearing a clerical robe.  As you will see, she also has a gift with words beyond compare.  With her permission I first used this prayer at a community Thanksgiving service many years ago.  The experience was so moving that it has become... Read more

Enough Bread 2 Kings 4:42-44 Special thanks to Elizabeth Hagan for her help with this one! Even if you haven’t checked a calendar lately, it wouldn’t be too tough to know that the holidays are coming up.  Yesterday, five different people asked me what my plans for Thanksgiving are—it seems like everybody is gearing up for the big week ahead.  In my family, and probably in yours, too, the annual tradition involves a tremendously excessive amount of food; annual practices... Read more

Death in the Pot 2 Kings 4:38-41 Welcome back to the ongoing saga of Elisha the Israelite prophet.  You’ll recall that over a period of four weeks in worship (this is the third) we’re making our way through one chapter of the book of 2 Kings, four stories from the fourth chapter of the book.  Last week we heard the long and involved story of Elisha and the Shunammite woman, where Elisha got busy doing very powerful things, like bringing... Read more

Elisha and the Shunammite Woman 2 Kings 4:8-37 I am wondering this morning: how many of you knew Clarence Cranford? “Cranny,” as he was affectionately known, was pastor of this church for a total of 29 years.  He began his pastorate in 1942 and retired in March of 1961 . . . then he came back to be pastor in November of 1961 then finally (really) retired in 1971.  Kind of like Michael Jordan.  And, even not knowing him in... Read more