by jakeowensby | Apr 8, 2022 | Luke 23:1-49
Nobody said that love is safe or easy. Love, genuine love, is risky and sometimes painful. Honestly, it’s hard work. We were born to love. God made us that way. Love, you see, is how we connect with God and how we become our true selves. In a way, that boils...
by jakeowensby | Apr 1, 2022 | John 12:1-8
She died at work. A massive heart attack seized her as she stood behind the grocery store’s deli counter. Maybe she was slicing pastrami for a customer. Or making potato salad. Or just daydreaming. Her coworkers found her lying on the floor and called 911. The EMTs...
by jakeowensby | Apr 3, 2020 | Matthew 27:11-54
People say that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. And yet, I’ve also found that you truly love yourself only once you love others. That may sound like a vicious circle, like a dog chasing its tail endlessly. But it’s not. That’s because love...
by jakeowensby | Apr 7, 2017 | Matthew 26:14- 27:66, Palm Sunday A, Uncategorized
Woody Allen once said something like, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” Humor has a way of delivering hard and tender truths that we might otherwise fend off. Satirists coax us into lowering our guard with the promise of a good laugh. The best...
by jakeowensby | Nov 18, 2016 | Luke 23:33-43, Proper 29 C, Uncategorized
My earliest boyhood reading came mainly from three sources. Over my father’s objections, my mother purchased Compton’s Encyclopedia on a volume-a-month, pay-as-you-go plan. I devoured each one before the next arrived. Somehow a 1950’s-vintage Boy Scout manual had...
