Tag: fear

This is the Way

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Sermon for Sunday, November 2, 2025 || All Saints C || Luke 6:20-31

Today, on the day we celebrate all the saints, I’d like to talk to you about one element of sainthood that binds together nearly all the saints – their utter dedication to the words Jesus speaks in this morning’s Gospel lesson. The people we honor as saints were not superheroes of the faith; rather, they were ordinary people who trusted God to shape their lives into vessels of justice, peace, and love. The saints who were martyred could have fought back, but chose death instead of abandoning their commitment to nonviolence. The saints who modeled the values of God’s reign could have shrunk into the scenery of their centuries, but chose instead to speak out about the injustices happening around them. The saints who were denigrated in their time could have reflected the hate and fear and indifference of their societies, but chose instead to shine brightly with the light and the love of God.

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With My Arms Spread Wide (updated)

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Sermon for Sunday, March 16, 2025 || Lent 2C || Luke 13:31-35

The world is a heavy place right now, and my last several sermons have been quite heavy in response. So today, I’d like to return to an imaginative space with a story sermon, the kind that I offer once or twice a year. Please imagine with me a letter written by Simon the Pharisee some years after the events described in this morning’s Gospel reading.

Simon, a servant of the Lord God, to Judith, my dearest sister and confidant: Peace to you and your house.

I know you think I only write to you when I need advice, but in this case, I write with a more urgent need. Yesterday in the marketplace something happened that shook me to my bones and caused me to let go of a secret I have been holding onto so very tightly for years. I need to tell you the truth about myself before you hear others slander me. I hope after you read these words you do not think less of me; rather, I hope you might consider joining me in my new-found freedom.

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Sinking Your Roots

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Sermon for Sunday, February 16, 2025 || Epiphany 6C || Jeremiah 17:5-10

Today I’d like to talk about roots. Where do you sink your roots? In what are you rooted? Trees weather storms and high winds both because they bend and because there’s as much of the tree rooted in the ground as there is climbing to the sky. In these days of tumult, confusion, and dislocation, where we are rooted is so vitally important. So let’s talk about roots today, and I’m going to start with a story about my parents.

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Peter and Jesus

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Sermon for Sunday, May 1, 2022 || Easter 3C || John 21:1-19

I can only imagine the maelstrom of thoughts roiling in Simon Peter’s head in the weeks following Jesus’ resurrection. At the last supper, he promised Jesus: “I will lay down my life for you.” He was willing to draw blood when they came to arrest Jesus in the garden. He followed Jesus all the way to the gate of the high priest’s house. And then everything fell apart. People began recognizing him and he felt afraid and in his fear he did something he never dreamed he would do, not even in his worst nightmare.

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Five Easter Encounters

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Sermon for Sunday, April 17, 2022 || Easter Sunday C || John 20:1-18

Good morning, and welcome to St. Mark’s on this glorious Easter Sunday. Today is our first Easter on-site here on Pearl Street since 2019, and I am overjoyed to see your faces. If there’s anyone here today who doesn’t know me, I’m Pastor Adam Thomas. Today is my ninth Easter as the rector of this wonderful church, and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be than celebrating with you on this special feast of the Resurrection.

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Fear and Trust

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Sermon for Sunday, August 8 2021 || Proper 14B || John 6:35, 41-51

God created us to be beings of love and trust. We all start out that way, at least, but pretty soon the world teaches us a lesson I wish we all had the opportunity to unlearn. The world teaches us to fear, to be afraid of so many parts of life. This makes sense, because the world contains a lot of frightening things. When I was a kid we did not have active shooter drills in school like my children do now. Then the massacre at Columbine happened my sophomore year of high school, and school shootings have been a terrifying element of American society ever since. This fear is ever-present in my mind when I drop my kids off at school, hovering right below the resurgent pandemic.

Fear has a way of debilitating us, of shrinking us down and holding us hostage. Thinking about fear this week, I also had in my mind Jesus’ words from the Gospel lesson I just read. Those words started seeping into my consciousness. And I noticed that Jesus had sidled up right next to my fears and made them seem very small in comparison.

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The Fire of Faith

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Sermon for Sunday, April 26, 2020 || Easter 3A || Luke 24:13-35

I’m not usually still in bed when the rest of my family wakes up. I often wake up some time between three and five in the morning, while everyone else gets up about 6:30. But this past Monday night, for some reason, I slept later than I normally do. I was still dreaming at quarter to six on Tuesday morning. Then, suddenly, the clock said 6:22. Leah and I were awake, waiting for the patter of little feet in footie-pajamas. Sure enough at 6:30 on the nose our five-and-a-half year old daughter came into our room and without preamble crawled into bed between us. The three of us cuddled for a while, in various configurations as dictated by our wiggly child. In one of the cuddling variations, a feeling of deep peace and soul joy came over me. For that particular moment in time, my body and my spirit were perfectly aligned to accept the love that God showers upon us through the gifts of each other. And the strange thing was that I noticed it while it was happening.

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Deep Breaths with Palestrina

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Sermon for Sunday, March 22, 2020 || Lent 4A || Psalm 23; John 9:1-41

I usually listen to really upbeat music when I’m writing my sermons, often the Piano Guys, who do instrumental mash-ups of pop and classical music. Their driving rhythms mixed with familiar melodies propel me forward as I write. I’m sure I bop my head along, my fingers click-clacking across the keyboard in time with the percussion. When I sat down to write this sermon, I put on the Piano Guys like normal. But about thirty seconds into the first song, I had to switch to something else.

Because today is not normal. Today is about as far from normal as I can remember since the days following September 11, 2001. As I thought and prayed my way into today’s sermon, I noticed just how un-calm I was. I had not slept well in several nights. I had pain in my jaw, always a sign of stress. I had a thick knot of anxiety in my chest. I looked beyond the anxiety and felt a roiling mix of other emotions, which I’ll get into in a moment. Realizing my state on un-calm, I changed the music. I selected a setting of the mass in Latin by the Renaissance composer Palestrina, who never fails to help me take deep breaths.

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Beyond Fear

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Sermon for Sunday, December 22, 2019 || Advent 4A || Matthew 1:18-25

At the end of this sermon, I’m going to talk about the movie Frozen II. But first let’s talk about fear. Whenever an angel of the Lord appears in Holy Scripture, the angel always begins the message for the same four words: “Do not be afraid.” Today’s Gospel lesson is no exception. Mary’s fiancé Joseph has resolved to “dismiss her quietly” because of her pregnancy, but he takes one more night to sleep on the decision. During that night, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and says, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. My question is: Why would Joseph be afraid to do this? I can think of many reasons for Joseph’s fear, and I want to talk about three of them this morning. We’ll dispense with the first two quickly because the third is where I really want us to focus.

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Join the Movement

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Sermon for Sunday, February 10, 2019 || Epiphany 5C || Luke 5:1-11

Today marks the beginning of a season of racial healing, justice, and reconciliation in the life of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. This season, which will last at least two years, was initiated by the Annual Convention of our church, as delegates from over 160 parishes and worshiping communities voted together to share in this particular piece of God’s mission. Just like Jesus calls his disciples in today’s Gospel, God calls us to partner with God in working for healing, justice, and reconciliation across many systems that contribute to the broken state of this world. These systems of oppression and degradation overlap and intertwine, and they are all so big and entrenched into the machinery of the world that challenging them seems like an impossibility.

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