August 17, 2025
10th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 15 Year C – Mark Winward
Jesus said, Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division… [families] will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” – Luke 12:51, 53 NRSV
Today’s Gospel presents some of Jesus’ harshest words—verses that might not be most preachers’ first choice. It has always frustrated me that when a reading contains something difficult to hear, hard to believe, or seemingly incomprehensible—and the preacher dodges it. But that’s exactly what the preacher should be addressing. So it is in that place we find ourselves with today’s Gospel reading.
If we were to list ten of the hardest sayings in the Gospels, today’s passage would undoubtedly make the list. Jesus’ declaration that He came to bring fire, a distressing baptism, and division—even within families—are hardly comforting words. Quite frankly, we’d rather imagine Jesus as a peacemaker than as a home breaker. And it hardly helps to dismiss these sayings as “not authentic to Jesus.” They remain in the Bible—Scripture that the Church, through the ages, felt led to include in the canon.
My hermeneutic—that is, my approach to interpreting Scripture—is to ask: What does the text say? What did it mean? And what does it mean to me? It’s been said that “a text without a context is a pretext.” Be wary of any preacher who quotes multiple verses without considering their surrounding context.
August 10, 2025
9th Sunday after Pentecost – Mark Winward
Audacious Faith
At first glance, today’s readings may seem unrelated. But look closer, and a thread begins to emerge—one that ties Isaiah, Hebrews, and Luke together. Woven through each passage is an audacious faith: a bold, risk-taking trust in God we are called to live out.
In Isaiah (1:1, 10–20), the young prophet is blunt with God’s people. Their outward good works, he says, are meaningless without an inner change of heart. Offerings without repentance are empty. Prayers without transformation go unheard. Instead, Isaiah calls them to something deeper: “Learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed” (v.17). True worship is not just ritual—it’s the transformation of both heart and action.
Hebrews (11:1–3, 8–16) picks up this theme, focusing on Abraham’s faithfulness. This chapter is sometimes called the “roll call of the heroes of the faith.” But as my old professor Reggie Fuller would say, “The Bible knows no heroes… heroes are witnesses to their own achievements; whereas in Hebrews 11 the great figures of salvation history are brought forth, not for their heroism, but for their faith.” He defined faith as “taking a risk to trust God at God’s word when God makes promises about the future.”
The challenge is that Hebrews 11:1 is often misunderstood. The NRSV says, “Faith is the assurance (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the conviction (elegchos) of things not seen.” Yet those Greek words are never used that way anywhere else in the New Testament.
August 3, 2025
8th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 13C – Mark Winword
Then Jesus told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” – Luke 12:13-21
KC, Christian, Matthew, and I are so glad to be finally joining you in ministry here at Holy Family! We moved into our new home in Talking Rock on July 15th, and thanks to the Holy Family Grounds Crew, we made short work of as much as I could shoehorn into a 10×20 U-Haul van. KC returned to Florida a couple of days later to prepare our home for sale while I stayed behind to unpack. KC, Christian, and Matthew are here for the weekend and will join me permanently around the middle of August.
As a Navy family, we’re old hands at these kinds of transitions – this is our 24th move!
July 27, 2025
7th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 12, Year C – Bill Harkins
The Collect of the Day
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Lesson: Hosea 1:2-10
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son…
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this seventh Sunday after Pentecost, and a day on which we have a challenging text from Hosea. I confess that I am often drawn to texts that are simultaneously disturbing and intriguing, and this is certainly among them. Indeed, a quick survey of a few clergy colleagues revealed that not one of them planned to talk about Hosea this morning. One, whose comments I will edit for both brevity and contextual appropriateness said,