Julia McCray-Goldsmith, Author at LiftUpYourHearts

The Questions Themselves

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. … Read the rest

Conspiracy Theory

Proper 11B

So I’ve been thinking about conspiracy theories this week. And no—before you start worrying about me—they have nothing to do with why the Secret Service didn’t heed warnings about a shooter climbing an adjacent building. Nor do they have to do with angels surrounding the former president nor with any divine anointing of his ear with blood. The … Read the rest

Freedom to be Family

Proper 10B

Since I haven’t been in the pulpit since I got back home, let me bring you greetings from the nearly 7,000 Episcopalians who gathered in Louisville Kentucky for the 81^th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I was at there to serve as a hospitality volunteer for Latino ministries, which was a head-spinning and body-aching experience of … Read the rest

Only, Live Your Life

Proper 4B

Not gonna lie, this is a hard Sunday to preach. By now most of you know that I will be retiring before the end of this year, because my husband John is retiring from his career in public finance at the end of July. I love being a priest, and I especially love being your priest, but my … Read the rest

Saving Salvation

Trinity Sunday 2024

Salvation. Now there’s a mouthful of a Biblical word. Because we don’t use it much in other contexts these days, it tends to take on a kind of mystical weight. And it does and should have that dimension, when we use it in church. But it’s worth remembering that it—in Biblical times—it had some rather more ordinary … Read the rest

Hands in Blessing?

Ascension

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week looking at paintings of the Ascension. There are lots of them—by Renaissance masters like Giotto and Rembrandt and Titian—and also by early iconographers and manuscript illuminators. And then in the 20^th century, there’s the evocative rendition by Salvador Dali. I hope you have seen it, or will at least … Read the rest

Shadow and Light

Feast of Peter and Anna Cassey

I’ve been thinking about light lately, although for rather technical reasons and not specifically related to Jesus’ teaching in the 5^th chapter of Matthew. Or at least I didn’t start out thinking of it as such. I’m hoping to do a small fundraising campaign to move some priceless stained glass to Trinity Cathedral, … Read the rest

After the First Step

Easter 4B

How do any of us ever get up and walk? “Through our own power or piety?” Peter asked rhetorically of people who had just witnessed a healing at the Jerusalem temple. Of course not. The lame man walked because of God’s grace alone. That was their lesson. But have we learned it for ourselves? Likely we didn’t get … Read the rest

The Once and Future Garden

John 20:1-18

We are stardust, we are golden—
And we’ve got to get ourselves… back to the garden.

Anybody recognize those words? I was a child—admittedly a pretty small one—when Joni Mitchell penned the lyrics of the Woodstock anthem in 1969. My somewhat-hippie parents weren’t at Woodstock, but they were groovy enough to play this song regularly in my childhood … Read the rest

Just Do (Do) It

Palm Sunday 2024

Whew. This gut-wrenching Palm Sunday Gospel, dramatically enacted by… reads like a catalog of provocative questions and defamatory statements about Jesus’ identity. At the outset, Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews, and then the Gospel ends with a centurion proclaiming “truly this man was God’s son.” In between, there’s all manner of mocking … Read the rest