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  • Sheep Or Goat? Yes We Are – A Sermon On Matthew 25:31-46

    Sheep Or Goat? Yes We Are – A Sermon On Matthew 25:31-46

    So what do you make of today’s gospel (Matthew 25: 31-46)? Is Jesus separating the good from the bad? Is Jesus saying some are welcome and included in the kingdom but others are rejected and excluded? Is Jesus keeping score of what we’ve done and left undone and then handing out rewards and punishment? And…

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  • Pushing Back The Darkness – A Sermon On Matthew 25:1-13

    Pushing Back The Darkness – A Sermon On Matthew 25:1-13

    Where is there light in your life and the world today? And where is there darkness in your life and the world today? I wouldn’t be surprised if for many or even most of us our first answer is based on how we feel and what we think about the results of our presidential election.…

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  • Here We Are – A Baptismal Sermon On the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12

    Here We Are – A Baptismal Sermon On the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12

    Emmitt, though you are only four and a half months old you are never too young to hear the Beatitudes for the first time, and neither are the rest of us too old to hear them again for the first time. Today you are being immersed in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) as a way of…

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  • Reading The Book Of Nature

    Reading The Book Of Nature

    There is “a great book,” Saint Augustine says, “the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it.” St. Anthony also knew about this book. Once when a visiting philosopher asked how such a learned man as he got along in the desert without the benefit of books, Anthony…

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  • Love’s Only Hope In This World – A Sermon On Matthew 22:34-46

    Love’s Only Hope In This World – A Sermon On Matthew 22:34-46

    “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” These, Jesus says, are the two commandments on which everything else hangs. They are two sides of the same thing. You can’t truly have one without…

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  • There’s Got To Be More Than This – A Sermon On Matthew 22:1-14

    There’s Got To Be More Than This – A Sermon On Matthew 22:1-14

    If what we hear in today’s gospel (Matthew 22:1-14) is really what the kingdom of heaven is like, then I’m not interested. Who needs God’s kingdom – at least as Jesus describes it today – when we already have more than enough leaders throughout the world who are abusing their power, when violence is perpetrated…

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  • Between What Is And What Could Be – A Sermon On Isaiah 5:1-7

    Between What Is And What Could Be – A Sermon On Isaiah 5:1-7

    Isaiah describes how God dug a vineyard, cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines. Then God built a watchtower in the midst of the vineyard and hewed out a wine vat in it. And now God want to know, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not…

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  • A Prayer And A Pledge For The 2020 Presidential Election

    A Prayer And A Pledge For The 2020 Presidential Election

    The following liturgy and pledge were prepared after a conversation the vestry (the parish’s governing body) had about how we want to be toward one another in the time leading up to the 2020 presidential election and afterwards. The liturgy incorporates a theme expressed in my sermon, We Are Nineveh. The vestry and clergy of…

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  • We Are Nineveh – A Sermon On Jonah 3:10-4:11

    We Are Nineveh – A Sermon On Jonah 3:10-4:11

    Jonah has finally arrived at Nineveh. It’s a city so large it will take him three days to walk across it. Going a day’s walk into the city he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” What do you hear in his words? What do you imagine Jonah might be thinking and…

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