Poem for Thursday Eucharist


Dashing through Luke 7: 36-51

slash
of morning sun
douses the labyrinth
that topsy
-turvy journey
to now
-here where
there are no
dead ends
center periphery
host guest
changing places
trading names oh
tomato big as
a fist pigeons
wheeled by
pinch of
bus’s brakes
in the round dance
of love the
‘woman from the
city’ loves and
is forgiven is
forgiven and loves
save the grace
versus works debate
for later she’s
busy adoring
pouring herself out
to the Adoring One
who pours himself
out to her
the wooden door
still standing
wide open
Simon tapping
his toe


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Proper 16 Year A: Waking Up as One Body

  A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Proper 16, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector Those opening lines from today’s portion of Paul’s Letter to the Romans provide us with a thread that weaves its way through our readings: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.” What does it mean “not to be conformed to this world?” How does not conforming to the world point the way to following Jesus? And what difference does not conforming to the world make in a time of racial reckoning, fear-mongering, and political animus? In Paul’s vocabulary, the world, like the flesh, is not about denial of our physical selves. God gave us bodies and God in Godself came among us in the flesh. God declared the creation “good.” So a proper understanding of Paul’s notions of flesh and world can’t just take the easy route of a wor...
Read more

Good Friday

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Good Friday: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42; Psalm 22 The Reverend Canon Tyler B. Doherty I’ve always thought that if ever there were a day when words seem appallingly inadequate, it’s Good Friday. If I had my druthers, I’d let the liturgy preach itself. From the reading of the Passion Gospel, to the Solemn Collects and the singing of the  Reproaches, to the Veneration of Cross—we learn everything we need to know from how the liturgy unfolds in its spare, stripped, stinging silence. Especially on a day when most of the words that come out of peoples’ mouths in the Passion Gospel witness to being enslaved to self-deception, scapegoating rage, and murderous violence—“Crucify him!”—one more human voice hardly seems likely to make a difference. In fact, maybe feeling the compulsive need to speak, to justify oneself, is precisely what this day calls into question. Perhaps it is a day when the silence o...
Read more

Proper 15, Year A: The Conquest of Conquest

  A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark Proper 15, Year A The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean & Rector One of the powerful things about the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is that the latter often contains a creative reworking of the former in light of the love and mercy revealed in the person of Jesus. Jesus himself doesn’t just quote, or recite scripture, he interprets it creatively in light of his intimate relationship with the Father; he improvises with it like a jazz musician playing a standard. You might recall at the beginning of Luke’s gospel, for example, where Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reads those famous mission-defining lines from Isaiah,  …[T]he scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and ...
Read more