Stephen Colón

A view of a tiffany stained glass window with repeating scale-like tiles in a rainbow pattern, seen from below.

God and us

A prophet’s true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Category: Sermons

All the things I’m scared of

I am someone who is scared, a lot, of a lot of things. I am scared of taking out the trash at night. I am scared of my car making weird noises. I am scared of checking my to do list. I am scared of notifications in the FollowMyHealth app from my doctor’s office. I…
Read more: All the things I’m scared of
Fruitcake and the family of God

It’s an imperfect analogy, but it makes me think about when I first started working here last summer and learned all about our practices around Dia de los Muertos and our favorite hymns and the hymns which were very much not our favorite and the parts of our order of service and prayers that were…
Read more: Fruitcake and the family of God
Bidirectional memory

Día de los Muertos and All Souls Day are two holidays that occupy the same day on our calendars and share meanings that are quite similar, even if there’s an important demarcation point between the two. I think the Catholic writer Joel Schorn put it best when he talked about the two holidays as ones…
Read more: Bidirectional memory
What are you avoiding, Jonah?

In therapy this week making small talk about this sermon, and my therapist, Dr. ■■, just kind of nods… then we begin the session and we talk about this reflection exercise I said I’d do and haven’t done… and then we talk about this absolutely annoying work phone call I said I’d make but haven’t……
Read more: What are you avoiding, Jonah?
Choosing to be together

An Episcopal priest I follow, Reverend Rachel Kessler, said this week that if there is ever anything that makes her consider giving up on ministry, it is when the balance in her work shifts “from more about proclaiming the good news to like, trying to keep an institution alive.” And while I haven’t been doing…
Read more: Choosing to be together
What is God like?

I can’t help but wonder, friends, if the reason we can’t get away from the complexity of the trinity is that we are being called into the same. We are being given the holy mystery of God, revealed in the scriptures that our forebearers have compiled out of six millenia spent triangulating who God is…
Read more: What is God like?
May we be empty

In Christianity, we think of the guidance we get from God as coming from the Holy Spirit. And I wonder if our Christian ancestors are telling us, “you need to be open to receive. You need to make the choice to receive.” And when you do, you’ll be infectious. You’ll create a feeling of closeness…
Read more: May we be empty
The only way through is together

That God of unity sends, at maybe one of the scariest moments of the disciples’ lives, heavenly beings to be in companionship with the disciples. That relational God charges the disciples to stay together, waiting for the power of God to come upon them. And as we’ll discuss next week in the Pentecost story, when…
Read more: The only way through is together
What do you have to believe?

Maybe “I believe you can raise the dead” feels too heavy for Martha right now. And that’s where this week’s reading cuts off. A few verses later, Mary has an interaction with Jesus that’s somewhat different, but still does not end in her explicitly believing Jesus will raise her brother from the dead. We know…
Read more: What do you have to believe?
The shadows of sent-out ones

At Bible Study on Tuesday, I was touched by how quickly folks caught on to what’s unique about this passage: the hypothetical in this story is not just a hypothetical about resurrection. It is a hypothetical that pre-supposes a patriarchal world where a woman’s job is to bear an heir for a man—even a deceased…
Read more: The shadows of sent-out ones