A postcard for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost 07/17/22
Sometimes you just got to say “wow.”
By now it is obvious that I am a space nerd and this won’t be my last space-related postcard/sermon. But I invite you to take a moment to appreciate these amazing images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
The writer of Colossians wanted the people there to look into the sky and see something different than those around them. While those around them saw small gods, Christians should look to the heavens and see the creator of the universe—the mystery of Christ is in all creation.
So maybe science and physics aren’t exactly your thing. Here is some advice from the poet Walt Whitman:
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Dear Church—look up.
A sermon for the Church of the Messiah in Heflin, Alabama, on the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, 07/17/22:
Principal text: Colossians 1:15-28
Coming next
The often-overlooked “second lesson” of the Sunday liturgy is typically a reading from one of the New Testament Epistles. This summer we will take some time to learn more about these letters that shaped early Christian theology.
- July 24 – Church of the Messiah, Heflin — Colossians 2:6-19
- July 31 – St. Andrew’s, Birmingham — Colossians 3:1-11
- August 7 – St. Barnabas, Roanoke — Hebrews 11:29-12:2
- August 14 – Church of the Messiah, Heflin — Bishop’s Visitation
Notoriously Episcopalian 