Hope Does Not Disappoint Us

Sermon for Sunday, June 14 2026 || Proper 6A | Romans 5:1-8

It has been about nine months since I preached a sermon about hope, so I think we’re due for one today. Hope is one of those slippery theological concepts because true, enduring hope differs from the more common Pollyanna-ish, reality-defying hope. But since we more often encounter the Pollyanna-ish hope, such a watered down version of hope tends to creep to the forefront of our minds. St. Paul, however, describes a much more hard-won hope, one that begins in suffering. And that’s the hope we’re going to talk about today. Also, a little bit of Calvin and Hobbes, but we’ll get to that in a minute or two.

Continue reading “Hope Does Not Disappoint Us”

How Old is God? (and other questions)

Sermon for Sunday, June 7, 2026 || Proper 5A

Today is our Youth Sunday at St. Mark’s, and to celebrate we invited the Godly Play kids to ask me any questions they desired. We collected a list of twelve questions, ten of which are autobiographical in nature. We’ll run through those quickly. The last two are absolute theological doozies, so we’ll spend the bulk of this sermon tackling those two. Here we go with the first ten.

Continue reading “How Old is God? (and other questions)”

Grace, Love, Sharing

Sermon for Sunday, May 31, 2026 || Trinity Sunday A || 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

At the end of his second letter to the church in Corinth, St. Paul writes these memorable words of blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” As we celebrate the Holy Trinity today, I’d like to focus on the three words that Paul associates with this fundamental truth of Creation: grace, love, and communion.

Continue reading “Grace, Love, Sharing”