Natalie's Grace Notes

  Friends, it’s Ascension Sunday! I know, I’ll try not to keep you too long, so you can get to your Ascension Sunday parties after this. Yeah, we have this very bad habit in Christianity of making a very big deal out of just two of our holidays–Christmas and Easter–and generally ignoring the rest of them, to the extent that some of our beloveds only come to church twice a year. By now, y’all have learned that Pastor Natalie doesn’t ignore our other holidays, the ones we hardly talk about are my favorites! And Easter is a whole season, not one day, and today is the conclusion of that Easter season. The season began with Jesus’ resurrection, and Mary Magdalene proclaiming the Good News of the Risen Christ, and it ends here, with Jesus summoning his eleven surviving disciples together one last time, to give them some parting wisdom before going on to heaven. Luke tells us that, in those final moments that Jesus was with his disciples in person, he finally gave them everything they’ve ...

  Today is a joyous day of life, love, and hope. It’s desperately needed, as our world has never been more parched of life, love, and hope. And today, on Easter Sunday, when we’ve never been more dehydrated of what keeps us alive, Jesus invites us to drink out of the firehose. We need to never forget how revolutionary Easter is. We need to never allow ourselves to grow complacent, to go through the motions, to come here because mom told you to but passively hear the same story you’ve heard many times. As if resurrection is old news. It’s ancient news, from our beloved ancestors. From our sister, Mary Magdalene, lovingly preserved so we would never forget. But old? The resurrection never gets old. We need it now more than ever. Because we live in a society where we spend most of life digging ourselves a grave, fully expecting that someday we’ll either stumble in, or get pushed in by someone or something else. It’s downright countercultural to stand here and proclaim otherwise. ...

  Friends, we’re up to week 5 of this sermon series I’ve put together for Lent about the ancient Church’s teachings on the seven deadly sins. So far we’ve talked about pride, greed, envy, and sloth. One note of housekeeping: this sermon series ends next week, on Palm/Passion Sunday, with the sin of wrath. I’m cooking up quite the sermon about “lust”, but because it’s so important to me that you’re in the right headspace to hear that message, and that you’re hearing it by your own choice, instead of delivering that one from the pulpit, I’m posting it next weekend to my Substack, as well as to Facebook for those accustomed to reading my sermons there.  Today, a day when we are NOT having a big lunch after service, we’re talking about gluttony. What on earth is gluttony? Our first impression is that gluttony has something to do with food. Our pedestrian understanding is that it’s the Cookie Monster sin. And sure, Cookie Monster is impulsive, and he’s smashed a few plates in pursu...

  Friends, we’re now in the 4th week of this Lenten sermon series about the seven deadly sins. So far we’ve talked about pride, greed, and envy. Now this week we’re talking about sloth! Notice how I didn’t pick “gluttony” for a week when we’re having a potluck after church? Sloth stands out for me among the seven deadly sins for a few reasons, the first and primary among them being that we don’t have a great understanding of what “the sin of sloth” is. And that became even more clear to me when I researched it in depth. Five, and arguably six, of the words we use to describe the other deadly sins–pride, greed, envy, lust, wrath, and even gluttony–are words that might sound old-timey, but that we still use in common parlance. But we don’t tend to describe any behavior or thoughts as “slothful.” If anything, “sloth” isn’t a sin to us, it’s a really, really cute animal that moves so notoriously slowly that moss starts to grow on its fur. So if “sloth” is a sin, then it’s the sin of be...

  Friends, we’re now in week 3 of this Lenten sermon series I put together about none other than the seven deadly sins! An intimidating premise, for sure, but I hope we find some light here together. The ancient Church taught that all sin flows out of these seven errors of judgment. First piece of Good News? We’re all in this together. These ways of wrong thinking are universal. Second piece of Good News? If we all err together, then we can all help one another make better choices. The third of the seven deadly sins that we’re looking at together is envy. The Oxford dictionary defines “envy” as “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church employs the Latin word “invidia” to describe envy, and adds that not only is envy a longing for what someone else has, but, worse, a feeling that if you can’t have what they have, then you’d like to take theirs away so they won’t have it either. Yik...