The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor © 2023, Dr. Tamilio Do you remember Hugh Hefner? (Did you ever think you’d hear a sermon begin with that question?) Hefner interviewed Jimmy Carter during the run-up to the 1976 Presidential election. Carter said, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in […]
2023, Dr. Tamilio I came across the following story recently.[1] There is a mere strip of sand called Castle Island near the eastern end of the Bahamas archipelago. Few people are aware of it — and, as tiny and isolated as it is, Castle Island is important for the lighthouse that is its sole source […]
The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor © 2023, Dr. Tamilio I remember reading the book Tuesdays with Morrie when it was a bestseller years ago. It is the true story of sportswriter Mitch Albom spending time with his former college professor Morrie Schwartz as the latter was in the process of dying. It was, […]
The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor © 2023, Dr. Tamilio At the advice of my colleague, Rev. Dee Scott, and our Student Minister, Alex Killian, I started watching the series The Chosen last week. It is a series by the filmmaker Dallas Jenkins currently streaming on the Peacock network. It is a historical drama […]
The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor © 2023, Dr. Tamilio Antisemitism is on the rise in the United States. According to Mary Markos, it is up 42% in New England, particularly in our own state: good ol’ Massachusetts.[1] About a week ago, a swastika was painted on a sidewalk in Swampscott. Recently, the musician […]
The trek the Church has been traveling for the last four weeks will come to a climax in three days when even those outside the ecclesia celebrate Christmas. For Christians, this is the day that we commemorate the birth of Jesus — when God decided to enter the human drama definitively as one of us. […]
The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III © 2022. All rights reserved. T.S. Eliot is not the only poet I love. There are many others: Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Geoffrey Hill. I especially love Anne Sexton. Sexton was a twentieth-century poet who lived in Newton and taught at Boston University. Her poetry is amazing: […]
Dr. John Tamilio III © 2022. All rights reserved. I conducted a funeral the other day and at the graveside, after the committal, a friend of the deceased described him (twice) as a “God-fearing man.” God fearing? That is a term we use quite a bit — at least we used to — yet we […]
Dr. John Tamilio III © 2022. All rights reserved. Ten Samaritans. Ten foreigners. Ten people who have leprosy come to Jesus to be healed — and he heals them! Nine of the ten of them go to the Jewish priests (as Jesus instructed them). They did so presumably to offer the “proper” sacrifices of thanksgiving […]
Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor © 2022, Dr. Tamilio There are all kinds of great quotes about money. “Money often costs too much.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “Too many people spend money they earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.” – Will Rogers “Those who say ‘it’s only […]