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Words From the Middle

At the intersection of Sacred and Profane

2020/09/20 By Barry Leave a Comment

An annoying story

I know, I know . . . I even say it in the sermon, we really aren’t “allowed” to be annoyed or irritated by stories in the Bible. But c’mon, the story about the landowner with the vineyard and his HR practices can be really annoying. There is something in Jesus’ story in Matthew 20 […]

Filed Under: Pentecost, Preaching, Sunday, Year A Tagged With: annoyance, fair, fairness, gifts, grace, irritation, justice, landowner, parable, preaching, vineyard, work

2017/09/24 By Barry 1 Comment

It is grace, no matter what you might want

One of the hallmarks of Jesus’ parables is they potential they hold to shock us into thinking of things in a new way. Some of his parables do this better than others and the parable we looked at today is one of the best. There is something about this parable that is virtually guaranteed to […]

Filed Under: Pentecost, Preaching, Sunday, Year A Tagged With: fair, fairness, grace, injustice, Jesus, justice, landowner, Matthew, parable, preaching, vineyard

2014/04/13 By Barry Leave a Comment

Between two extremes

This is the beginning of Holy Week. In other times and other places this Sunday would be Palm Sunday, pure and simple. In this time and this place (and many others) this is Palm / Passion Sunday. Our schedules of work and other responsibilities have made a traditional Good Friday service virtually impossible for most […]

Filed Under: Lent, Preaching, Sunday, Year A Tagged With: injustice, justice, Palm Sunday, Palm/Passion Sunday, Passion, preaching, recognition, reward

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