St Thomas

Proper 20B, September 23, 2018 Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1 James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 St Thomas the Apostle The Rev’d Leo Loyola It began as an experiment. A group of first-year students from a very conservative seminary wondered what the Bible had to say about the poor and poverty. So they scoured through the Old and New Testaments of an old bible. And in their fervor, they made several keen observations: Poverty—second only to idolatry—was the most prominent theme in the Old Testament In the entire New Testament, one out of every sixteen verses spoke about the poor or the subject of money In the Gospels themselves, the proportions were greater. One out of ten in Matthew, Mark and John. And in Luke, one out of seven. After hours of work, the group identified thousands upon thousands of references. Surely, they felt, that the authors of bible saw the moral…

Proper 16B, August 26, 2018 1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84 Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69 St Thomas the Apostle The Rev’d Leo Loyola I love being a priest. Not because I thrive the attention from what I wear, or the thrill of inspiring people hearing me preach. I love it because it is, for me, a way of life. The priesthood allows me to boldly express my faith as a Christian. And yet being a Christian—lay or ordained—is not always easy. Sometimes we get pigeonholed into the same group as other Christians who we vehemently disagree with theologically and those we simply abhor. Take, for example, the Christian Right, those who arguably define American Christianity. For these evangelicals, Christianity is about having the right principles and doctrines. It’s about morality. It’s about how moral values shape culture for the better. Under their terms, to be Christian means…