Matt O'Reilly, PhD

A sermon preached on Ash Wednesday 2015 at St. Mark United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama. The invitation to observe a holy Lent is an invitation to sacrifice and self-denial. It is an invitation to give something up. This has been the common practice of Christians around the world century after century. Many of us have in recent days asked the question: What will I give up for Lent this year? And many have selected something and resolved to fast from it, to do without i

I came across this quote this morning while reading Scot McKnight’s book Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today: At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [of the Cross].            -Tertullian, De Corona, chap. 3 Talk about a great quote

My homily from Ash Wednesday has been published at Seedbed and can be found here. This reflection was born out of reading Douglass Campbell’s work on Romans 6. Here’s the key quote: Freedom is not a matter of sheer choice…but of an incremental creation of new possibilities for bodily action that must be learned and internalized…Freedom is therefore complex, communally mediated, and embodied. Above all, it is learned and hence taught, much as someone is only free to play a vio