Category Archives: lectio divina

Living with the Texts: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”

This was today’s sermon for Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday. Peace to all and to our nation.

–Rev. Laura

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Living with the Texts: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”
The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
January 16, 2011

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell a strange story
about something that happened
very shortly before Jesus was arrested and killed.
For three years now Jesus has been preaching and teaching
in small villages and communities.
He preaches love and compassion and healing
to anyone who will listen.
Now he is getting ready to go to Jerusalem.
And his disciples are worried,
because he’s started to talk a little bit wild.
He’s started to talk like he thinks he’s going to die soon,
like he thinks it’s his destiny to be killed,
and he gets mad at them when they tell him to cut it out.
It’s scary.
They don’t know what to think.
Continue reading

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Filed under Gospels, Hebrew Bible, lectio divina, Martin Luther King Jr., Unitarian Universalism

Living with the Texts: “The Year of the Lord’s Favor”

Here’s today’s sermon, reading Isaiah 61:1-4 in light of the tough economic times we’re going through here in Stockton, CA. Have a good Thanksgiving, all, even and especially now!

Peace,

Rev. Laura

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Living with the Texts:
“The Year of the Lord’s Favor”

The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
November 21, 2010

Thousands of years ago, half a world away,
the people of Israel returned from exile
to rebuild the city of Jerusalem,
a city that had been devastated by war and decades of neglect.
The Babylonian conquerors had destroyed the Temple,
razed the city,
forced its inhabitants into exile.
Now, some fifty years later,
the Persians had conquered the Babylonians in their turn,
and the Persian emperor Cyrus allowed the Israelites
to come home and rebuild their city at last. Continue reading

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Filed under Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 61, lectio divina, Stockton, Unitarian Universalism