Sometimes, when we hear the same thing over and over, we tend to tune out what the speaker is saying. This happens a lot with television commercials. But sometimes, we can hear the exact same words and come away with a completely different understanding than we had before. Actors often have to practice saying their lines over and over in order to get just the right emphasis to the words so that the audience hears the story in a new way.
I have to admit, I didn’t know who Minerva McGonalgall was until yesterday. She is a character in the Harry Potter books. She has been the headmistress at the Hogwarts School from time to time, and the head of Gryffindor. But what the most interesting thing I learned about her is what she teaches at Hogwarts. She teaches transfiguration.
Barnett Newman, 1948
A buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, “make me one with everything.”
…So the vendor gives him a hot dog and the monk gives him a twenty dollar bill. After a moment of waiting, the monk asks, “Where’s my change?”
The vendor smiles and says, “Ahh, change must come from within.”
Have you ever been so angry, you could just spit? In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus was. In fact, the bible says that he snorted like a horse.
Of course, the translation we have in front of us doesn’t put it quite that way. It says that after he healed the man of leprosy he sternly warned him and sent him on his way. “Sternly warned” – that is an understatement. The original greek word we find in that verse comes from the snorting sound horses make. Jesus was angry, and he wasn’t afraid to show it.
But who was he angry with?
a sermon for the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany
When Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law, she begins to serve him dinner.
Is that so bad?
