The Seeds of Heaven
Sermons on the Gospel of Mark
by Barbara Brown Taylor
Summary
Author and preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor describes preaching as:
“…building a fragile bridge of words between the ancient stories of the faith and the everyday stories of people’s lives.”
In The Seeds of Heaven, Taylor builds bridges for stories from the gospel of Matthew.
Author’s Website
The Seeds of Heaven - By Barbara Brown Taylor
Favorite Quotes
“Drop by transparent, short-lived drop, water transforms rock as no tidal wave ever could. For reasons beyond our understanding, that is how the Messiah has decided to come for now—not all at once but steadily, drop by drop, for millennia. Every time someone lives as he lived by loving as he loved, another drop falls.”
“The focus is not on us and our shortfalls but on the generosity of our maker, the prolific sower who does not obsess about the conditions of the fields, who is not stingy with the seed by who casts it everywhere, on good soil and bad, who is not cautious or judgmental or even very practical, but who seems willing to keep reaching into his seed bag for all eternity, covering the whole creation with the fertile seed of his truth.”
“I wonder if they did not look at that small basket of food going around and feel the food hidden in their own pockets begin to burn holes in them. Because you know they had some…You know some of them had tucked a little something away before heading off on foot to a lonely place apart. Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
“If Peter is the rock upon which the church is built, then there is hope for all of us, because he is one of us, because he remains God’s chosen rock whether he is acting like a cornerstone or a stumbling block, and because he shows us that blessedness is less about perfectness than about willingness—that what counts is to risk our own answers, to go ahead and try, to get up one more time than we fall.”
“God is not fair; God is generous, and when we begrudge that generosity it is only because we have forgotten where we stand. On any given day of our lives, when the sun goes down and a cool breeze stirs the dusk, when the work is done and the steward heads toward the end of the line to hand out the palm, there is a very good chance that the cheers and back slapping, the laughter and gratitude with which he is greeted will turn out to be our own.”
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