June 23, 2024
5th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 7 Year B – Bill Harkins
The Collect
O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel: Mark 4:35-41
When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you and peace,
June 16, 2024
4th Sunday after Pentecost
Year B Proper 6 – Father’s Day – Bill Harkins
Mark 4:26-34
4:26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
4:30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all,
June 9, 2024
3rd Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins
In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you, and peace, and welcome to Holy Family on this Third Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you are here this morning. In the reading for today from the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus asks the crowd “Who are my mother and my brothers”? This is among a variation on a theme of texts in which Jesus asks questions such as “Who do you say that I am?” and, “Who are my brothers and sisters?” They are questions that have significance for each of us, too. I love these similar gospel readings for a number of reasons. For one, they often show Jesus in a paradoxical light; he is alone, praying, yet with the disciples around him; he is accused of being “out of his mind,” yet he is clear, non-anxious, and resolute; he is curious about what others are saying, yet he shows an awareness of his journey as part of something much larger than can be encompassed by the events and opinions swirling around him—in short, he is being an effective leader. He wonders what others call him, even as he knows that in terms of his earthly fate, it does not matter. Indeed, this awareness of his fate—that he would undergo great suffering—suggests an awareness of the larger divine narrative and his role in it,
June 2, 2024
Second Sunday of Pentecost – Bill Harkins
Luke 1:39-57
1:39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
1:40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
1:41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
1:42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
1:43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
1:44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
1:45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
1:46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen.
Grace and peace to each of you on this Second Sunday after Pentecost,