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by Pastor Diana Holbert
You are walking down a grocery store aisle, filling your basket with things that are good for you, high in nutrition, fiber, taste. You go through the line, waving at the clerk as he smiles back at you as he says, “Bye! Have a nice day!” You walk out without paying because this grocery store is free! Wee!
That’s what this looks like in Isaiah 55. Read the rest of this entry »
by Pastor Diana Holbert
High in the foothills of the Mount of Olives is a little, white chapel, shaped like a teardrop and built in the 1950’s over Byzantine ruins. The sky was bright blue when we made our way on down the steep, dusty slope with a small group of religious journalists and pastors from across the United States.
We walked in and went straight to the window. Please join us. Read the rest of this entry »
by Pastor Diana Holbert
Last Wednesday…
It was the beginning of Lent. We had a very dramatic choral reading with an organ background to make your hair stand on end. Rev. Mark Buchanan offered us a word that Lent is a set-aside time, when we don’t so much “do” for others as “be” for God. In the service, we remembered and wrote down the things that keep us from being with God and burned them up in a beautiful caldron. From the ashes of broken promises, shame, and disappointment, we received the cross on our foreheads as a sign of belonging to the one who gave himself up for us. Read the rest of this entry »
by Pastor Diana Holbert
Transfiguration Sunday
Hanging above my desk in my study at home is a photograph of an ancient church in Ravenna, Italy. My eyes travel down the long nave, stop for a minute on the front pew, and then move upward to see the apse, the rounded part at the front of an ancient church.
The Church of Saint Apollinare in Classe is in a dusty, ancient city that used to be on the shore of the Adriatic Sea. Over the centuries, silt has filled in four miles of land, keeping this Byzantine ghost-town seaport protected. Read the rest of this entry »
by Pastor Diana Holbert
The fishermen are washing their nets. A long day. No fish. Jesus commandeers one of the boats because people are pressing on him and he needs to get some distance. He teaches from the boat to the shoreline a short distance away.
Then he looks at Peter. Doesn’t he see how tired and disappointed he is? “Go out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Peter has only known this man for a short time, but he knows Jesus is no fisherman. Peter says, “We’ve worked all night long and haven’t caught anything!” Read the rest of this entry »
by Pastor Diana Holbert
I want you to try something. Turn to a neighbor and talk about how you feel about your name. You’ve got about 30 seconds each, so get to it!
Names. They are given to us. They become who we are – our essence.
Even if you don’t like the name you were given, oftentimes, hearing your name gives you a little thrill. Do you know the feeling of walking into a room of strangers and hearing your name called by someone who likes you? It’s great.
Names are important. One of our newest members told me recently that when she heard me call her by name at the communion rail, she said to her partner, “She remembered my name!!!” Read the rest of this entry »
by Pastor Diana Holbert
Read Acts 10: 9-28 and Acts 10: 34-48
I would like to share a blessing that one of our members sent me on Tuesday, which is my sermon-writing day. As I read it today, let it be for all of us:
Blessed one…
My prayers are with you as you prepare your sermon. May God’s word open hearts and minds, removing bricks from walls of hatred and stones from the hands of prejudice and fear. May you find peace in standing with the Holy One; strong in Him and one with His divine words. Amen.
You are welcome here in God’s house. There may be a few people from the news media here. Read the rest of this entry »
