Sunday, August 20, 2017 || Proper 15A || Genesis 37-47
In honor of holding a Godly Play storyteller training here at St. Mark’s this weekend, I’d like to take today’s sermon to tell you a story. It is an old, old story, one which we heard the end of just a few minutes ago. We heard the beginning of the story last Sunday, and then we skipped the long roller coaster ride in the middle. It is the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis. The story of Joseph teaches one thing above all. It teaches that God’s directing creativity can work through any earthly situation, good ones and bad ones, joyful ones and painful ones. Continue reading “Directing Creativity: The Story of Joseph”→
Sermon for Sunday, August 13, 2017 || In response to the Violence in Charlottesville, VA
You might be wondering why I didn’t shave today. I have enough grandmothers in this congregation that I assure you someone is wondering that. Well, at about quarter to six this morning, I scrapped my sermon. I had just finished revising it when I decided to check the news and learned what had happened yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia. If you were tuned out yesterday like I was, here’s the short version. A large group of white supremacists gathered on and near the campus of the University of Virginia to, according to them, protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Counter-protesters also gathered. There were verbal and physical clashes, culminating in a car plowing into a the latter group, killing one person and injuring 19 others. Later in the day, a police helicopter crashed, killing both officers aboard (though foul play was not suspected).Continue reading “God is Love, and Love Wins”→
I began this two-part sermon last week talking about our partnership with God in Christ; how Jesus’ invitation to “take his yoke” upon us is an invitation to plow the field with him, walking alongside each other. If you’re anything like me, you find this invitation easier to accept during terrible and tumultuous times, and you lay aside the yoke during the mundane dailiness of life. I closed last week’s sermon asking these questions: How much more meaningful would our lives be if we invited God to be present in those mundane times: to be part of the washing up and the lawn mowing and the daily commute? To be part of studying for a test and eating dinner and jogging? How much more often would we notice God already at work in the world around us if we invited God to be at work in the world within us?
This noticing happens when we pay attention. And when we pay attention we discover God is already at work in our lives whether or not we sent the invitation. I’d like to take the rest of this sermon to introduce you to a spiritual practice I have been using for the past eleven years in order to remain attentive. It is called the Ignatian Examen, a daily introspective prayer of awareness derived from the work and witness of 16th century Saint Ignatius Loyola. Continue reading “Take My Yoke Upon You: The Examen (part 2 of 2)”→
Sermon for Sunday, July 9, 2017 || Proper 9A || Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
There’s an old bumper sticker that reads, “God is my co-pilot.” Have you ever seen that one? The intent of this sticker is in the right place, but the problem with this particular sentiment is that it makes me the pilot. I’m still in control. I’m in charge of takeoffs and landings, even though my co-pilot God is surely better at both than I am. And so another bumper sticker came along that reads, “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats.” I’m pretty sure one of the reasons God called me to be a priest is to help me because I’m really bad at this seat-switching business.
God wasn’t even on my plane for a long time. Maybe God was in the air traffic control tower making sure I didn’t crash, but that’s as close as I would allow God to come. After all, the church had burned my family when I was a kid, and I associated God with church, so why would I let God aboard?Continue reading “Take My Yoke Upon You (part 1 of 2)”→
Sermon for Sunday, July 2, 2017 || Proper 8A || Psalm 13
I don’t often preach on the psalm, but today I am. I know the story of the binding of Isaac is terribly difficult, and it is the text I should preach on. I did three years ago when these lessons turned up in the last cycle, and I invite you to listen to that sermon on my website. I’ll link to it from this one. As I said, I don’t often preach on the psalm but today I am because today’s psalm is the perfect example of a type of Biblical literature that is so very important to our lives. Psalm 13 is a psalm of lament.
In recent months, many people in the church and out of it have expressed to me sadness or frustration or anger or despair over the current state of our world. And I’ve felt all of the above, as well. These expressions are ones of lament. They and I have lamented the violence done at home and abroad, so much all at once – from atrocities in Syria to terror attacks in England to the shooting at the congressional baseball practice, to the murder of the young Muslim woman in Virginia. What can we do in the face of such violence but lament?Continue reading “How Long, O Lord?”→
Sermon for Sunday, June 18, 2017 || Proper 6A || Matthew 9:35 – 10:8
Today I’d like to talk about Jesus’ twelve disciples. Matthew catalogs their names in the Gospel lesson I just read; it is a list of some famous names and some obscure names and one notorious name. The caveat here is that we know many other people followed Jesus besides these twelve men, including an undefined but certainly large group of women, some of whom financed Jesus’ operation. A few of their names are recorded in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion; indeed, they remained stalwart in the face of danger when most of the twelve fled. Would that we had more of their stories recorded for posterity.
What the Gospel writer Matthew chooses to record is the names of twelve men, who formed something on an inner circle. Reflecting on their roles in the Jesus Movement as recorded in the Gospel gives us models for our own roles in that same movement. Matthew lists the disciples as “Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.”Continue reading “The Twelve”→
Sermon for Sunday, June 11, 2017 || Trinity Sunday, Year A
If you look to the back of the church, you’ll notice we have a window missing right now. The good folks at Cathedral Stained Glass in New London are currently restoring our Trinity window, which has deteriorated over the years to the point where it could have shattered during a blustery storm. Today is not the most opportune Sunday of the church year to be lacking the Trinity window. Today is, after all, Trinity Sunday, and in years past I’ve enjoyed directing your attention to the window at the beginning of my sermons on this particular day. I can’t do that today. Instead, I can only direct your attention to the lack of the Trinity window.
But such a lack of the window stirs up some new thoughts; specifically the following question: Who would we be without the mystery and revelation of God as Trinity of Persons and Unity of Being? This question jumps to mind because, in recent years, many faithful Christians have wondered if we really need the encumbrance of the Trinitarian notion of God. Isn’t it just unnecessary baggage weighing down an already weighty topic, they argue. With fewer and fewer people finding God in the Christian church in the United States, wouldn’t it make sense to streamline our beliefs a little bit, make them easier to apprehend?Continue reading “Diversity Without Division, Unity Without Uniformity”→
One Sunday last October, I made a strategic error in my preaching. I held my guitar the whole time, but never played more than the opening riff of “Blackbird” at the beginning. For the rest of the sermon, many of you expected me to, you know, actually play a song. But I didn’t. I just held the instrument. I’d like to correct that today, so I’m telling you right now: I plan to end this homily with a song.
The song I’m going to offer you is one I wrote many years ago during my last semester of seminary. I wrote it in response to the Gospel lesson I just read, a passage which takes places right before Jesus is arrested and brought to trial. The passage is the beginning of a long and complicated prayer, which Jesus offers on behalf of his friends, most of whom are about to deny and abandon him. The prayer is long because the Jesus of John’s Gospel is always verbose. And the prayer is complicated because Jesus seems to be praying it from the future. Continue reading “Don’t Wait for Death”→
Sermon for Sunday, May 21, 2017 || Easter 6A || Acts 17:22-31
I’m going to start today’s sermon with a statement, which I hope is confusing enough to make sure you want to stay with me for the next ten minutes while I unpack it. Are you ready? The statement is this: None of us has ever actually worshiped God. That’s the statement – none of us has ever actually worshiped or prayed to or talked about God.
Are you sufficiently confused? Good! I was so confused when I started working on this sermon that I spent a good hour trying to figure out what to say first. In the end I decided to invite you into my confusion and see if together we can find our way out. We have the Apostle Paul to blame. In our passage from the book of Acts this morning, Paul finds himself in Athens, Greece. He strolls the boulevards looking at the statuary dedicated to various gods of Greece and other nations. And then he comes across one altar with the inscription: “To an unknown god.” Paul decides this unknown god is the God of of his ancestors and the Father of his Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul stands up at a gathering of the local scholarly elite and proclaims to them just who he thinks this unknown god is.Continue reading “Magnetic Mercy”→
Sermon for Sunday, May 14, 2017 || Easter 5A || Acts 7:55-60
Growing up, I was not the stereotypical rebellious preacher’s kid. I never stole my parents’ car. I never had a fake I.D. I never smoked or did drugs or partied. I was actually a pretty boring teenager. Even so, I committed my fair share of infractions against my parents’ rulebook. No matter the infraction, big or small, my parents never grounded me. They never took away privileges. They certainly never whipped me. They didn’t need to. They had a much more effective punishment at their disposal. They would sit me down for a Talk, look me in the eye, and say, “Adam, we love you. And we are very disappointed in your behavior.”
