Tag: Bible

Joy is Not Made to be a Crumb

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Sermon for Sunday, April 5, 2026 || Easter Day A || Matthew 28:1-10

Dear friends, welcome to St. Mark’s on this special feast of the Resurrection that we call Easter Sunday. Every Sunday is technically a feast of the Resurrection, but this one is extra special because it comes on the heels of our week of walking with Jesus during the difficult days of his Passion: his arrest, trial, condemnation, walk to the cross, crucifixion, and death. And now, three days later, we celebrate his rising in the power of the promise that nothing, not even death, can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This fundamental truth of Creation is worth celebrating every single day, this truth that nothing can separate us from God’s love. We sing “Alleluia” today for the living and for the dead and for generations yet to come, all of whom God loves in the eternal NOW of God’s presence. We praise God today – for that is what “Alleluia” means – because God is faithful and fulfills the promise to be with us always.

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Virtues

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Sermon for Friday, April 3, 2026 || Good Friday || Isaiah 52:13–53:12; John 18:1–19:42

This year I decided to preach this short homily before the reading of the Passion Gospel because I would like to offer you something to reflect on while you listen. I invite you to listen for the virtues that Jesus displays during this heartwrenching story, and I invite you to reflect on what virtues you live by without which you would not be able to recognize yourself. Don’t worry if you didn’t take that in just then; I’ll repeat the invitation at the end.

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Baby Donkeys

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Sermon for Sunday, March 29, 2026 || Palm/Passion Sunday A || Matthew 21:1-11

This is a sermon about baby donkeys. Well, really it’s a sermon about peace, but the thing you probably will remember about it is the baby donkey. Today, we celebrate an event in the life of Jesus, an event that was so momentous that it appears in all four accounts of the Gospel. At the beginning of the service, we read Matthew’s version of this event: Jesus’ triumphant ride into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week leading up to Passover. The way Jesus decides to enter the city demonstrates to the people of his own time and for people of all time Jesus’ conscious and dedicated embrace of nonviolence. And it all comes down to a baby donkey.

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The Language of Embrace (Updated)

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Sermon for Sunday, March 22, 2026 || Lent 5A || John 11:1-45

Today’s sermon is about the promise of the resurrection. And we’ll start today at a windswept cemetery as a funeral comes to end. The prayers have all been prayed. The earth has been cast on the shining, glossy coffin. The low murmur of voices mingles with the whisper of the wind through the long, cemetery grass. The new widow rises from the velvet-covered folding chair, the triangle of the blue field and white stars of the American flag peeking out from under her arm. A line of black-clad people forms, and they begin to file past her. You watch her receive with grace each well-meant, but well-worn sentiment. You join the line, and soon it’s your turn. You grasp her hand in both of yours and wait for the words to come.

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Foreigners

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Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2026 || Lent 3A || John 4:5-52

Only once in my life have I truly felt like a foreigner. It wasn’t on our honeymoon in South Africa because we were ensconced at a small game reserve the whole time. It wasn’t in Israel because I was there as a tourist doing touristy things. It wasn’t even when I visited Haiti because, though I stood out due to my pale skin, every Haitian I met made me feel like family. The only time I have ever felt like a foreigner was the first day of the second half of sixth grade when I walked into Mrs. Green’s social studies class at Hillcrest Middle School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

There were three things that marked me as a foreigner, an immigrant from the cold, distant land of New England. First, I was the new kid. Second, I did not know I was supposed to call my teacher, “Ma’am.” And third, I had a wicked Rhode Island accent. In a comedy of errors that is seared into my memory, when I needed a drink of water, I asked, “Can I go to the Bubbl-ah (Bubbler)?” It took about ten minutes to figure out I meant the water fountain, at which point I could only go if I addressed Mrs. Green as “Ma’am.”

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How Can These Things Be?

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Sermon for Sunday, March 1, 2026 || Lent 2A || John 3:1-17

This sermon is about the cultivation of that wonderful gift of God known as curiosity. The older I get, the more I realize what I don’t know and the more I value curiosity. It’s strange. There seems to be an inverse relationship here. When I was younger, I should have been more curious, but I thought I knew way more than I did, so I did not cultivate curiosity. Now that I am edging into my mid-forties, my curiosity piques all the time. I get excited to learn new things, to explore topics that I never knew would interest me until I started digging into them. I love being curious.

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Faithful, Collaborative, Renewing

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Sermon for Saturday, February 14, 2026 || Celebration of New Ministry || Numbers 11:16-17, 24-30; Psalm 146; Romans 12:1-18; John 15:9-16

Greetings from the other side of the country. My name is Adam Thomas, and I am the rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic, Connecticut. Yes, that is the place made famous by the 1980s coming-of-age film Mystic Pizza. And yes, there really is a pizza place named that; it’s around the corner from my church. I am so glad to be here for this celebration with you for three reasons. First, I got to escape the unprecedented run of single digit temperatures in New England. Second, three of my best friends from different phases of my life all live here somehow, and I’ve gotten to visit everyone. And third, I get to speak with you this morning about your new partnership in ministry with a friend I met half a lifetime ago, the Rev. Bret Bowie Hays.

Now, this sermon is not going to devolve into a roast of Bret. I promise I’m going to talk about God and church in a minute. But just so you know why I’m the one preaching today – besides his family, I’m probably the person in this church who has known Bret the longest. We met on the first day of orientation at Virginia Theological Seminary way back in the halcyon days of the summer of 2005. We became fast friends, bonding over our love for pizza, theological discourse, and Star Trek. We spent many a night in the dorms together at VTS, him watching Star Trek and me falling asleep watching Star Trek. Bret was a groomsman in my wedding; he’s godfather to my son; and he is one of those friends you can call up and chat to for an hour when you’re driving to a meeting at the diocesan office. After priestly ministry in Colorado, Massachusetts, and Florida, he has arrived here in California as your next rector. And I am so excited about the new partnership in God’s mission you here at Trinity Episcopal Church and Bret have begun together.

As you continue getting to know one another at the outset of this new ministry, I invite you to embrace three words for your life together. May God grant you the grace to make your ministry together faithful, collaborative, and renewing.

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Seven Ways

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Sermon for Sunday, January 25, 2026 || Epiphany 3A || 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

There is so much going on in our world today, from armed conflicts stoked by authoritarian overreach to civil wars in overlooked parts of the globe to the rising stakes of climate catastrophe. As a country, we must band together against state-sanctioned violence, hatred, xenophobia, and the scapegoating of vulnerable groups. Closer to home, our neighbors need stable, affordable housing options, food security, and better health outcomes supported by reasonable healthcare insurance. All of these crucial issues are swirling around us as we come to worship God here at St. Mark’s this morning. And while I am not going to address these issues directly in this sermon, everything we do here helps us respond to the needs of the world, as we partner with God in God’s mission. Because today is the day of our annual meeting, you can think of this sermon as a “State of the Church” address. And what better way to talk about the state of the church than to talk about how we are engaged in God’s mission of healing and reconciliation.

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Jesus’ First Conversation (Updated)

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Sermon for Sunday, January 18, 2026 || Epiphany 2A || John 1:29-42

“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks John’s two disciples.
“Rabbi, where are you staying?” they respond.
“Come and see,” Jesus says.

This is the first conversation Jesus has with anyone in the Gospel According to John. We’re going to dwell on these three lines of dialogue today. On the surface level, it’s a pretty simple exchange in which Jesus welcomes a couple of people to walk with him for a while. But the Gospel always operates on multiple levels. The first layer speaks to the surface meaning. This layer is easy for Jesus’ listeners to access, and so they become drawn in. Then the second, deeper layer of meaning presents itself. Those who listen for this second layer, who do dive deeply, find rich, life-giving substance in Jesus’ words.

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Bring Forth Justice

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Sermon for Sunday, January 11, 2026 || Epiphany 1A || Isaiah 42:1-9

I wrote a version of this sermon on Tuesday, which is my normal sermon-writing day. Then the events of Wednesday happened – ICE agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis – and I knew I would be writing a new sermon on Saturday. But the more I reflected on what I had planned to say, the more the bulk of the words I wrote on Tuesday made sense to share this morning, not despite of the events of Wednesday but because of them.

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