Posts tagged with: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

Psalm 51 symbolizes this season of repentance and reflection and at the same time its use as a liturgy of confession illustrates the need for A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church. The Church has long prayed this psalm without its first verse, the verse that frames the psalm as a confession for the sexual...... Read More

Ritualizing Bathsheba’s Rape

In the powerful image by Pauline Williamson (who creates as Sea), Bathsheba sits with her dead or dying child produced from David’s rape while he prays for the child. See her own interpretive work on this passage here. It is Shrove Tuesday, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday when Christians traditionally went to confession and were...... Read More

The Color Purple: A Lenten Sermon

 As we begin our Lenten pilgrimage, my theme is the borrowed title of Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple. Because I do believe that “it pisses God off if you pass by the color purple and don’t even notice,” I chose a text that I know no one ever preaches for Lent, if at...... Read More

Having A Holy, Cranky, Lent

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection…I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word… I usually...... Read More

Ash Wednesday: We’ve Got Work to Do

2Corinthians 6:1 As we work together with Christ, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. Let us pray: In the Name of the Author, the Word and the Translator. Amen. We’ve got work to do. As we work together with Christ. Fasting and bearing witness to our fast may be...... Read More