Tag: Faith

New Covenant

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Sermon for Sunday, October 19, 2025 || Proper 24C || Jeremiah 31:27-34

A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon about hope. With the Babylonian armies beating down the walls of Jerusalem, the Prophet Jeremiah purchased the field at Anathoth. Jeremiah then had the deeds of purchase sealed in earthenware vessels to last a long time. This prophetic action signaled that the Israelites would return from their exile and once again purchase houses and fields and vineyards in their own land. Today’s reading from Jeremiah begins with the realization of that hope. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals.…I will watch over them to build and to plant.”

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The Unchained Word

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Sermon for Sunday, October 12, 2025 || Proper 23C || 2 Timothy 2:8-15

There is a line from today’s reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy that struck me this week. The line is: “The word of God is not chained.” Paul is contrasting his own imprisonment because of the Gospel with the overarching truth that the word of God can never be imprisoned. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning: the unchained nature of the Word of God.

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The Fabric of Faith

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, October 5, 2025 || Proper 22C || 2 Timothy 1:1-14

This sermon is about community, about resisting the pull of isolation, especially in an age when we are all too often isolated from one another due to many and varied forces. The community we share in the church, when practiced at its beloved best, is the weave of the fabric of faith, into which God stitches our individual threads. Today I’d like to celebrate this weaving of beloved community and talk about how such weaving can, with God’s help, heal the world.

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I am Ashamed to Beg

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Sermon for Sunday, September 21, 2025 || Proper 20C || Luke 16:1-13

The parable Deacon Chuck just read is, admittedly, very confusing. But one thing the dishonest manager says leapt out to me this week, and that’s what we’re going to focus on today. After his boss is getting ready to fire him, the manager says, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.”

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Sin and Salvation

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Sermon for Sunday, September 14, 2025 || Proper 19C || 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Today we’re going to talk about sin and salvation. We’re going to talk specifically about two ways of looking at salvation, one which is more helpful for our lives of faith than the other. I’ll get to these two ways in a minute, but first I want to talk about Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and scribes in this morning’s Gospel reading.

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My Precious

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, September 7, 2025 || Proper 18C || Luke 14:25-33

The Gospel lesson Deacon Chuck just read for us contains one of Jesus’ more inflammatory statements: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” We’re going to unpack this inflammatory statement today, but first I want to tell you all about a person named Sméagol.

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Learning to Sing

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Sermon for Sunday, August 24, 2025 || Proper 16C || Jeremiah 1:4-10

Today we are going to talk about inadequacy. Specifically we are going to talk about how God calls people, not in spite of, but because of their inadequacies. This pattern holds throughout Holy Scripture, but we’ll get into that later. First, a personal story.

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Practice the Presence of God

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Sermon for Sunday, August 17, 2025 || Proper 15C || Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2

Today, I’m going to talk about faith. I’m going to talk about faith for two reasons. First, our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews invokes faith several times and I’d like to explore that with you. And second, over the course of my four weeks off, I discerned the need to recommit myself to some spiritual disciplines in order to exercise my faith. At the end of today’s sermon, I will invite you to do the same. But first, let’s define our terms.

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Catharsis

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, June 22, 2025 || Proper 7C || 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Luke 8:26-39

We have come to the part of our church year when I wear green for about six months. The weeks that stretch from Pentecost to Advent are known as “Ordinary Time” because no particular season falls during them. But I prefer the way Godly Play describes these next six months – the “green and growing Sundays.” As we begin these green and growing Sundays, I’d like us to spend this sermon time taking a deep, cleansing breath.

There is so much going on in the world – so much division, so much violence, so much uncertainty – that collapsing our personal worlds into smaller and more controllable ones becomes an attractive option. Most of us are personally insulated from the largest sources of upheaval, which makes this ability to retreat into ourselves possible. However, while managing our mental and emotional health in the midst of turmoil is definitely beneficial, ensconcing ourselves in bubbles of isolation is not a long-term lifegiving approach.

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Nine Pieces of the Spirit

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Sermon for Sunday, June 8, 2025 || Pentecost C || Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, 25-27

Today, on this Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the gathering of Jesus’ first followers. And we celebrate the Spirit’s continued movement in our lives. The Spirit moves in so many ways that we might easily miss how the Spirit is present with us. So I’d like to take this sermon to talk through in brief nine ways we encounter the Holy Spirit. You have a handy bookmark in your program to help you remember the nine ways. Also, as a reminder of the Spirit’s presence among this gathering, we are going to map these nine ways of encountering the Holy Spirit upon the beautiful piece of stained glass art by our own Alison Ives that will hang above the altar for the next six months.

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