Matthew 5:13-20 When we think of someone who we see as having a special goodness about them, we might describe them as “salt of the earth.” We mean that without these people, life would lose some of its flavor. Such people help remind us of what is important. They’re like sounding rods that keep us grounded in what’s real in life. Life is richer because of their presence.   We have heard that we are, as Jesus says during his Sermon on the Mount, “the salt of the earth” and “l

In 2016 I had the great fortune of taking a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Every moment of that trip was extraordinary but one of the highlights was going out on the Sea of Galilee in a boat that was made to replicate the one that Peter and Andrew would have been fishing on. Even though there was a local man demonstrating for us how they threw the nets off the side of the boat it felt authentic, not at all like a Disney version. I sat on the front edge of the boat and dangled m

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. This element of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount speaks to the core nature of what it means to be living in the world as the family of God. But Jesus wasn’t the only one to understand the importance of this core virtue in humanity. All great spiritual leaders speak of values that promote peace through compassion, love, and service to others and how that brings us closer to one another and to God, however you unde

Matthew 3:13-17   Ten years ago, in 2016, I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of about 20 Episcopalians led by monks of the Society of St John the Evangelist, which is a monastery in Cambridge Massachusetts. It was the most amazing and inspiring trip I have ever made. Every day I was filled with awe as we entered the stories from the gospel. We walked on the field where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount, we sat at the well where he shared water with the Sama