Tag: Diversity

I am of Paul

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, January 22, 2023 || Epiphany 3A || 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

This sermon is about the danger of fundamentalism, but it’s going to take me a few minutes to get there. I need to start like this: something’s going on in the Church in Corinth. We don’t know exactly what because we only have Paul’s side of the story. But we know that within a few years of its founding, fractures have appeared between the church’s members. Later in the letter, Paul references a few issues that divide the people: issues around what to eat, issues around who is most important in the church, and issues around which spiritual gifts are the best. Paul addresses all of these before culminating in his great poem about love – you know, “Love is patient, love is kind,” etc. 

But here at the beginning of the letter, Paul talks about another type of division that goes beyond the ideological. Paul has heard that the members of the Church in Corinth are assigning themselves to camps based on certain individuals. There’s Paul. There’s Apollos, who was another church planter in Paul’s orbit. There’s Cephas – that’s Simon Peter. And there’s Christ.

Okay, I’m going to get in the weeds here for a minute. Fair warning. I promise it’s important.

Continue reading “I am of Paul” →

NIMBY and the Reign of Christ

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

Sermon for Sunday, November 20, 2022 || Reign of Christ C || Jeremiah 23:1-6

Today is the final Sunday of the church year, the day on which we celebrate the Reign of Christ. Next week, we begin a new church year with the season of Advent. Both today’s event and the season of Advent share a similar theological lens. They both celebrate a present reality that is always happening AND a future reality that fulfills or completes the present one, a future reality that we long for and hope for, but has not yet come to pass. 

We tend to shorten these two realities into two camps: the “already” and the “not yet.” The upcoming season of Advent is a time when we celebrate the constant presence of Christ (that’s the “already”) while we also wait in hope for the second coming of Christ (that’s the “not yet”). And today, on this day we celebrate the Reign of Christ, we recognize God’s kingdom as the ever-present reality undergirding all of Creation (that’s the “already”) while we also recognize the continual need to partner with God to make that reality even more present across our broken world (that’s the “not yet”).

Today is also the day where the Greater New London Clergy Association, a group of several dozen pastors, priests, and rabbis from the region, (we all) decided to preach on the same topic – the housing crisis in Southeastern Connecticut. So I thought to myself: how am I going to talk about the housing crisis and about the Reign of Christ in the same sermon? And the answer hit me very quickly. The biggest obstacle to solving the housing crisis is also something that runs absolutely counter to the Reign of Christ.

Continue reading “NIMBY and the Reign of Christ” →

The Uniqueness of the Incarnation

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2017 || The Eve of the Feast of the Nativity || Hebrews 1:1-4; John 1:1-14

Imagine the scene in your mind’s eye: Mary collapses in the hay, her body racked with the utter exhaustion of labor. Joseph wraps the newborn in cloth he has ripped from his own traveling cloak and kisses his son’s eyes clean of the life-giving fluids of the womb. The baby boy tests out his lungs, and the shrill shriek of new life startles the placid animals dozing in their stalls. Mary beckons Joseph to hand her the baby, which he does – reluctantly. She places the naked infant on her own bare brown skin, and he inches his way to her milk, an impossible crawl for one so new, but he manages it just the same. Joseph watches, rapt with awe and wonder. The wild star burning bright in the night sky, the echoes of angels’ song – neither could compare to the beauty of the newborn, this treasure Mary holds to her breast.

Christus Natus Est. Christ is born. Continue reading “The Uniqueness of the Incarnation” →

The Connecticut Statement

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

This week I helped my friend, the Rev. Adam Yates, and a group of other clergy in Connecticut craft a response to the Nashville Statement. Our first attempt was little more than a reactionary rebuttal of the Nashville Statement’s affirmations and denials. It turns out we needed to write that first draft in order for it to evolve into what we really wanted to say. The second draft is an expansive vision of God’s creation and the rich diversity of people who belong to that creation. Because it is still a response to the Nashville Statement, ours still focuses on sexual orientation and gender identity. But it goes further than that, because as we wrote it, we reveled in the rediscovery of just how wondrous and creative is our God. Continue reading “The Connecticut Statement” →

There’s Only Us

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

Sermon for Sunday, June 19, 2016 || Proper 7C || Galatians 3:23-29

theresonlyusDuring the summer, I am preaching without a text, so what follows is an edited transcript of what I said Sunday morning at the 8 a.m. service at St. Mark’s.

This is a sermon about two pronouns. The two pronouns today are “us” and “them.” Remember that for just a minute, because first I need to tell you why Paul is so mad. We’ve been reading the letter to the Galatians for the last month, and we haven’t really mentioned it in a sermon yet. But just quickly, here’s why Paul is upset during the letter to the Galatians. Continue reading “There’s Only Us” →