The Rev. Sean Lanigan

The Rev. Sean Lanigan is the associate rector at St. Peter’s Church.

The Land of the Free

As people largely at arm’s length from the vicissitudes of nature—most of us being city dwellers—how are we to think about and talk about a relationship with the land? About the value of land, the meaning of land, the purpose of land? We tend to think more about real estate, about property, about architecture, than we do about the land itself. And this, of course, is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of humanity.

God’s Guest List

If God was hosting a dinner party, God would be sure to invite all the people we would never have considered inviting. Not out of malice toward us, of course, but simply because God has the capacity to enjoy, to delight in, the people we find most unappetizing.

Let the Fire of your Justice Come

There’s a certain militance that is detectable in some of Jesus’ speaking and acting, and this tone can make us uncomfortable. It would be so much easier if we could just write it all off, so much easier if we could just frame this as some sort of aberration.

Grace, in Unexpected Packaging

Asking for and receiving help just isn’t something many of us like to do. We prefer to be the helper, rather than the one who is being helped. We relish the power of offering help, but hate the powerlessness of needing it.

The Persistent Work of the Spirit

We try to build towers into the heavens, having no sense of boundaries or limits, no sense that Creation is a delicate and intricate balance of forces, no sense that the Creator has been trying again and again, gently and not-so-gently, to put us in our places.

Stories of Resurrection, and the Journey Home

The aftermath of the first Easter was not at all uniformly joyous for those who had loved Jesus. Indeed, those early post-resurrection days were much more emotionally complicated than our contemporary Easter festivities ever let on.