Nine years ago on Trinity Sunday, I preached a sermon called “God and Not-God: A Short History.” I’m going to preach a portion of that sermon again this morning before veering off in a different direction. This short history comprehends five truths that God has revealed to us, culminating in the truth of the Holy Trinity. But we need to begin at a more fundamental starting place.
Continue reading “God and Not-God (Updated)”
Two-thirds of the way through this sermon, I’m going to bring today’s second reading into it, but first I need to set the stage. Today, we’re talking about power, which is one of those tricky words because it can mean many different things to different people. We’re going to talk about three understandings of power, and I hope you will stick with me because the third one is the one we are aiming for.
Continue reading “The Capacity to Act”
I’ve never been able to get over the fact that the devil quotes scripture in today’s Gospel reading. Twice Jesus defends himself from the adversary’s onslaught using words from the scriptures. Jesus is so full of the Holy Spirit that the words of life spill from him and counter the devil’s temptation. “One does not live by bread alone.” “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” I imagine the tempter was getting pretty darn frustrated. But the adversary adapts, and for the third attack, the devil uses the same tactic.
Continue reading “For it is Written”
(Content warning: I talk about the Holocaust in this sermon.)
Love your enemies. This is the most shocking thing Jesus says in the entire Gospel. Love your enemies. We read this and throw up our hands, thinking Jesus must have gone mad. How could we possibly do such a thing? The whole point of an enemy is that you don’t love them. Enemies are to be defeated and demeaned and destroyed, right? The history of our war torn world would say yes. But our savior says differently. Love your enemies, Jesus says. If we’re going to take Jesus seriously – take ALL of what he says seriously – then we need to wrestle with this command to love our enemies. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. What does it mean to love our enemies?
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Today is a special feast day in the church. We call today the Feast of the Presentation, and this feast celebrates the event in the life of Jesus when Mary and Joseph brought their infant son to the Temple in Jerusalem to present him to the Lord and make a sacrifice. Today, I’d like to focus on the practice of presenting something to God in this sacred worship space. I’m going to speak abstractly for the second half of this sermon, so let me start with the concrete moment in the service that we call The Presentation.
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Multiple people asked me to expand on my sermon from last Sunday about common cause. They asked me what I thought they could do to counter the forces of fracture and disintegration in our society. So I’d like to take the time this morning to dwell on one particular call to action, which, handily, springs from today’s reading from First Corinthians. This call to action is so simple that anyone can do it, but it does take time and attention to grow into a dedicated spiritual practice. The call is simply this: with God’s help, expand and deepen your connections with other people.
Continue reading “To Catch Us All”
Today’s sermon is about the Holy Spirit inspiring us to work for the common good. The word “common” is a word we use a lot in the Episcopal Church. Since the year 1549, our worship book has been called “The Book of Common Prayer.” This use of the adjective “common” embraces both of the word’s meanings. First, our prayer is “common” in that it is an everyday thing, a normal part of our routine. Walking to the bus is common. Eating a bowl of oatmeal is common. Washing the dishes is common. Second, our prayer is “common” in the sense of “shared together.” We hold things in common among people, like a shared fridge in an office.
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Today, I am going to begin where last Sunday’s sermon finished, with the future. I ended by saying, “And Jesus is here, walking with us into the future where God is already, always, and eternally present.” For some of us, that future looks bleaker than it did a week ago. For others, that future looks brighter. But no matter our place on the ideological spectrum, none of us knows what the future holds. And such unknowing is prime fodder for anxiety.
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Here we are. November 3, 2024, the day we celebrate all the saints. We are two days before a momentous election that pits vastly different visions of this country against each other. The world is mired in the midst of multiple ongoing wars in which so many innocent people have died. We’re grappling with increasingly common and destructive natural disasters due to climate change. And on a personal level we are contending with issues ranging from physical and mental health to addictions to economic hardship to interpersonal relationships. Anxiety and stress are high. Time is fleeting. The future approaches, and we have no idea what it will hold. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been holding tension in my shoulders for so long that I don’t remember what it feels like to be relaxed.
Continue reading “God is Present”
During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. In 2022, the world was hurting in so many ways, so I wrote this musical meditation in response.
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2022: Maranatha Meditation”
Where the Wind... 