When we are anxious, we look for someone to blame.

Is it possible that this story of the kingdom is what happens when the kingdom of God is among us and so a story of what the world does to the one who does not wear a masque for the ball as it were? And so in the person whom the king casts bound into outer darkness is the one who sees the truth and names it? Could the kingdom be present in the victim? If so, then the way Matthew tells the story is no accident, no mere arrangement of the material by subject. If it is the whole story that reveals the kingdom and not a simple analogy then it becomes another prediction by Jesus of his own passion.

Rules from "on high" make me nervous. They make me question. Thankfully, though, there's already an answer here. Jesus and the Great Commandment are the answer for any question I might have for this great authority [of the 10 Commandments].

When we choose to follow God in Christ, we choose to follow God in self-giving love in Christ.

When I find myself like those people [in the parable] who worked all day, I think I am allowing my value and identity in this world to be governed by how I am doing in relation to others. As we know, however necessary it is for our development that we compare and contrast ourselves to others, there is a sense in which putting on Christ or living into the promises of the Gospel means finding our desires re-ordered and our identity increasingly dependent on God alone.

Rector Geoffrey Hoare discusses current events, church polity, parish matters, and pertinent theology. Rector's Forums are a great way to learn more about the parish, the Episcopal Church, and the Christian journey.

A brief presentation about stewardship at All Saints' by canvass co-chairs Diane and David Barber and parishioner Geoff Pope.

We are to forgive. Why?

Because we have been forgiven. Our debt has been paid. The sacrifice for us has been made. Our brokenness made whole.

Jesus came and lived among us and then reached out His loving arms on the hard wood of the cross, that we might come within the reach of God's saving embrace.

We are to forgive, as we have been forgiven.

On a day when we are celebrating the extent and variety of ministries in and of this community of faith, we are presented with scriptures about behavior... The ministries we celebrate are, at their best, ones in which we find it true that in service we are freed and in giving we receive. The ministries we celebrate today are those in which real and right relationship, --glimpses of real human connection through all the barriers that we construct and which define us in so many ways-become possible.

Paul isn't speaking to the individual here. He is speaking to a church, the church in Rome in the first century. And he's speaking to our church here, too. These are community instructions, instructions that assume the individuals will fall short from time to time, that some will be better at parts of the list than others.