I went home from work one evening last week and told Cyndy, “I had the best afternoon. I was doing what I love and, I don’t mean to brag, but I did it really well.” I suspect you’ve had days…
Read More Today Is The Day – A Sermon On Luke 4:14-21
Tag: Christian Life and Practice
Too Big For Your Britches? Good – A Sermon On Mark 10:35-45
Photo by Felipe Giacometti on Unsplash James and John want to be on top. They want to sit on either side of Jesus in his glory. The other ten disciples are angry about this. I picture them looking at James and John and…
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Becoming Our Better Selves – A Sermon On Mark 9:30-37
Photo by Ester Marie Doysabas on Unsplash “On the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest” (Mark 9:34). How do you imagine that argument went? Today’s gospel (Mark 9:30-37) doesn’t tell us what the disciples said…
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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 being, a path to be followed, principles by which to guide your life. They describe the divine life, the life of Jesus. And whether that life exists in this world depends on you and the rest of us. We never accomplish the beatitudes as a task completed. Instead we strive, day by day, to live into them.
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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 the other. This is about more than our feelings or affection for God and one another. It’s about our commitment to the life and well-being of the other. It’s a choice we make every day - to love or not to love. I wonder what that love looks like. I wonder what your life and my life would be like if we held those two commandments as the guiding principles for what we do. I wonder what we might create and achieve if we embodied and lived those commandments.
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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 on a daily basis, when people’s lives are being destroyed, when cities are burning, when some are excluded and told they don’t belong? We don’t need God’s help to bring that about, we’re pretty good at it by ourselves.
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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…
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“Show Me Your Work” – A Sermon On Matthew 16:13-20
I thought I knew or had some idea of what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah. The events of the last six months, however, have caused me to rethink what it means. It used to be mostly a Sunday morning kind of question, but now it’s an every day kind of question. It used to be about the future, but now it’s about the present moment. It’s no longer only or even primarily about saving souls, it’s about changing hearts. And if Jesus is not changing your heart and my heart then he is not the Messiah of our lives. And if he is our Messiah then he necessarily changes how we live.
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Filling The Jesus Gap – A Sermon On Matthew 11:2-11
The Third Sunday in Advent, Year A - Matthew 11:2-11 John the Baptist in Prison by Giousto de Menabuoi (1320–1391) John yelled at his disciples, “The Messiah is doing what!?” His voice escaped between the bars of his cell and…
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The How Of Life – A Sermon On Luke 6:20-31, Feast of All Saints
The Feast of All Saints, Year C - Luke 6:20-31 Blessed are the poor, the hungry, and the ones who are weeping. But woe to the rich, the full, and the ones who are laughing. Poverty over riches, hunger over…
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Interrupting the Silence 